An Industrial SocietyEconomic Growth during the Gilded Age (1877-1900)

Big Business during the Gilded Age• Between 1869 and 1899 the U.S. became the world’s leading

economic power—the population tripled, farm production doubled and the value of manufacturing grew 6X• Entrepreneurs recognized growing markets and focused their

attention on the techniques of mass production and distribution into single companies that dominated an industry (monopolies) or joined forces with competitors to limit competition (trusts)• Poor working conditions, business tactics and “laissez faire”

relationship that government had with business would provoke the formation of an organized labor movement

Factors promoting business Growth after the Civil War• Availability of natural resources• Labor shortage after war caused the invention of

high speed, labor saving machinery• Railroads/internal improvements encouraged by

federal government• “laissez faire”• High tariffs• Immigration/Cheap labor pool• Growth of Agricultural sector out west• Entrepreneurs/Inventors

2nd Industrial Revolution (Market Revolution)• Centered in U.S. and Germany• Involved 3 developments:• National transportation/communication network (National telegraph

and railroad system; steamships; undersea telegraph cable connecting U.S. with Europe)

• Use of Electric Power created industrial efficiency and urban growth (Electric trolleys and subways; production of steel and chemicals)

• Applying Scientific Research to industrial process• Researches figured out how to refine kerosene and gasoline from crude

oil (Edwin Drake)• Technique for refining steel from iron (Henry Bessemer)• New products (telephone, typewriter, adding machine, sewing machine,

cameras, elevators, farm machinery)

• All lowered consumer prices, which created a mass consumer culture

Entrepreneurs—Captains of Industry or “Robber Barons”Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt

• Merged rail lines connecting Albany to Buffalo into a single powerful rail network to New York City

• By 1873 he had connected lines to Chicago

• When he died in 1877, his son William added 13,000 miles of line in Northeast

Entrepreneurs—Captains of Industry or “Robber Barons”

John D. Rockefeller

• Obsessed with order, precision, tidiness

• Opened Standard Oil Company of Ohio in 1870; within 6 weeks he had taken over 22 of his 26 competitors

• By 1879 he controlled 90-95% of oil refining business in the U.S.

• Became the world’s leading philanthropist; gave away $500 million by the time he died at the age of 98

Entrepreneurs—Captains of Industry or “Robber Barons”

James Buchanan Duke

• Bull Durham cigarettes began in 1868 with Washington Duke

• His son, James Buchanan Duke, took a chance on a new cigarette-making machine in 1870s

• By the late 1880s, the Duke Company was producing 4 million cigarettes daily.

• One of his competitors, the Kimball tobacco factory had a daily output of 42,000 cigarettes

• Noted for his marketing and advertising

• After a "tobacco war" among the five principal manufacturers, Duke emerged as the president of the American Tobacco Company

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Entrepreneurs—Captains of Industry or “Robber Barons”

Benjamin Duke• Buck Duke's older brother had

launched the family into the textile business as early as 1892.

• As their textile interests developed, the need for economical water power led the Dukes into the hydroelectric generating business.

• In 1905, they founded the Southern Power Company, now known as Duke Power, one of the companies making up Duke Energy, Inc.

• Within two decades, this company was supplying electricity to more than 300 cotton mills and various other factories, electric lines, and cities and towns

American Tobacco Historic District, Durham NC

James B. Duke House, 5th Avenue, New York City

James Duke statue in front of Duke Chapel, Duke University

Marketing-Sears and Roebuck• Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck

began a mail order catalog by the 1890s

• Purpose was to extend the reach of national commerce to the millions of people who lived in isolated areas

• By 1900 there were 6 million Sears catalogs distributed a year; it was the most widely read book next to the Bible

Entrepreneurs—Captains of Industry or “Robber Barons”

Andrew Carnegie• Emigrated to the United

States with his parents from Scotland in 1848

• In 1850, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy at the age of 14 in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company at $2.50 per week

• By the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges and oil

Andrew Carnegie-Monopoly

• By 1873, he turned his attention to the steel industry; After the Civil War steel was cheap because of the Bessemer Process; Production increased and prices decreased

• In 1860 the U.S. had produced 13,000 tons of steel; by 1880 the U.S. was producing 1.4 million tons

• Built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company into a monopoly

• Sold to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for $480 million, creating the U.S. Steel Corporation.

• It was the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization over $1 billion.

Andrew Carnegie-Philanthropy• Devoted the remainder of

his life to large-scale philanthropy• By 1911, Carnegie had

given away over $43 million for the construction of 2811 libraries • The Carnegie Corporation

of New York formed to give away $150 million.; has given large grants to the other Carnegie trusts as well as universities, colleges, schools

Andrew Carnegie-Philanthropy• The Carnegie Endowment

for International PeaceFounded in 1910 with $10 million, the Endowment is the oldest public policy institution in the United States concentrating on issues of war and peace. • He gave $2 million in 1901

to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh now part of Carnegie Mellon University

Gospel of Wealth• Analyze Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth” using the

APPARTS sheet• In the significance category, think about whether these Gilded

Age entrepreneurs should be considered “Captains of Industry” or “Robber Barons”

• Furman Owens, 12 years old. Can't read. Doesn't know his A,B,C's. Said, "Yes I want to learn but can't when I work all the time." Been in the mills 4 years, 3 years in the Olympia Mill. Columbia, S.C.

Adolescent girls from Bibb Mfg. Co. in Macon, Georgia

A general view of spinning room, Cornell Mill. Fall River, Mass.

A moments glimpse of the outer world. Said she was 11 years old. Been working over a year. Rhodes Mfg.

Co. Lincolnton, N.C.

Some boys and girls were so small they had to climb up on to the spinning frame to mend broken threads and to put back the empty bobbins.

Bibb Mill No. 1. Macon, Ga.

The overseer said apologetically, "She just happened in." She was working steadily. The mills seem full of youngsters who "just happened in" or "are helping sister."

Newberry, S.C.

One of the spinners in Whitnel Cotton Mill. She was 51 inches high. Has been in the mill one year. Sometimes works at night. Runs 4 sides - 48 cents a day. When asked how old she was, she hesitated, then said, "I don't remember," then added confidentially, "I'm not old enough to work,but do just the same." Out of 50 employees, there were ten children about her size.

Whitnel, N.C.

Francis Lance, 5 years old, 41 inches high. He jumps on and off moving trolley cars at the risk of

his life. St. Louis, Mo.

View of the Ewen Breaker of the Pa. Coal Co. The dust was so dense at times as to obscure the view. This dust penetrated the utmost recesses of the boys' lungs. A kind of slave-driver sometimes stands over the boys, prodding or kicking them into obedience. S. Pittston, Pa.

A young driver in the Brown mine. Has been driving one year. Works 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily. Brown W. Va.

Oyster shuckers working in a canning factory. All but the very smallest babies work. Began work at 3:30 a.m. and expected to work until 5 p.m. The little girl in the center was working. Her mother said she is "a real help to me." Dunbar, La.

• After 9 p.m., 7 year old Tommie Nooman demonstrating the advantages of the Ideal Necktie Form in a store window on Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C. His father said, "He is the youngest demonstrator in America. Has been doing it for several years from San Francisco, to New York. We stay a month or six weeks in a place. He works at it off and on." Remarks from the by-standers were not having the best effect on Tommie.

Joseph Severio, peanut vender, age 11. Been pushing a cart 2 years. Out after midnight on May 21, 1910. Ordinarily works 6 hours per day. Works of his own volution. All earnings go to his father. Wilmington, Del.

A.D.T. messenger boys. They all smoke. Birmingham, Ala

Fish cutters at a Canning Co in Maine. Ages range from 7 to 12. They live near the factory. The 7 year old boy in front, Byron Hamilton, has a badly cut finger but helps his brother regularly. Behind him is his brother George, age 11, who cut his finger half off while working. Ralph, on the left, displays his knife and also a badly cut finger. They and many youngsters said they were always cutting themselves. George earns a $1 some days usually 75 cents. Some of the others say they earn a $1 when they work all day. At times they start at 7 a.m. and work all day until midnight.

Messengers absorbed in their usual game of poker in the "Den of the terrible nine" (the waiting room for Western Union Messengers, Hartford, Conn.). They play for money. Some lose a whole month's wages in a day and then are afraid to go home. The boy on the right has been a messenger for 4 years. Began at 12 years of age. He works all night now. During an evening's conversation he told me stories about his experiences with prostitutes to whom he carries messages frequently.

Homestead Strike• Bloody labor confrontation lasting

143 days in 1892• Centered on Carnegie Steel's main

plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania• Dispute between the National

Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers of the United States and the Carnegie Steel Company over wages• the arrival of a force of 300

Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men—seven strikers and three Pinkertons—were killed and hundreds were injured.• Labor defeated