Industrialization&

the “Gilded Age”

Essential Question

• How did industrialization bring both positive and negative changes?

Technological Advances• New inventions and technologies

helped fuel the great economic expansion of the late 1800s.

• Electricity

• 1876 – A.G. Bell invented the telephone

• 1879 – T. Edison produced the first effective light bulb

• Bessemer process – more economical production of steel

The Growth of Railroads

• After the Civil War, separate crews of engineers and laborers worked from California eastward and from the middle of the country westward.

• The Transcontinental Railroad was finally completed in 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah.• The journey from coast to coast was instantly

reduced from months to weeks.

Population Growth

• In 1850, there were 23 million Americans; by 1900, there were 76 million.

• Population growth created favorable conditions for business expansion.

• rising demand for goods

• plentiful cheap labor

Rise of Entrepreneurs

•With little to no government regulations on industry (free enterprise) businessmen were able to amass great fortunes

•“Captains of Industry” – positive

•“Robber Barons” – negative

Andrew Carnegie

• Carnegie Steel, 1892

• His steel mills undercut the competition.

• Didn’t treat his workers well• 12 hr days

• low wages

• no labor unions

• Wrote Gospel of Wealth

John D. Rockefeller• Made his fortune in the oil

industry.

• Standard Oil Company, 1870.

• By 1879, his company controlled 90% of the oil refining in the U.S.

• 1911, the government forced Rockefeller to dissolve Standard Oil.

• divided into 20 smaller companies

http://www.decades.com/videos/standalones/john-d-rockefeller-world-s-first-billionaire

BIG BusinessThe Pros & Cons

PROS CONS• Large businesses are more

efficient, leading to lower prices.

• They can hire large numbers of workers.

• They can produce goods in large quantities.

• They have the resources to support expensive research and invent new items.

• They have an unfair competitive advantage against smaller businesses.

• They sometimes exploit workers.

• They are less concerned with where they do business and pollute the area.

• They have an unfair influence over government policies affecting them.

New Laws

• Laissez-faire – French for “hands off”• Theory that the government should not interfere

in the operation of the free market… AT ALL.

• BIG business got so out of hand that reformers called for new legislation to increase competition.

• Interstate Commerce Act (1887)• Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)

• Shipping rates had to be "reasonable and just"

• Rates had to be published

• Secret rebates were outlawed

• Price discrimination against small markets was made illegal.

What is being illustrated in this cartoon?

Anti-trust really means “competition law”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ2f7SSfVck

The Conditions of Labor

• Long hours and low wages• 10-14 hour days; 6 days a week• $3-$12 weekly, but immigrants, women and

children would often work for far less

• Poor conditions, boring & repetitive tasks• “take it or leave it” jobs offered• dangerous work conditions

• Thousands of workers were injured/killed in industrial accidents each year

Child Labor

• Children might be used to move, clean or fix large machines since they were small enough to fit between the parts.

• 1/5 of all American children under the age of 15 worked outside the home in 1910.

• Injuries were common.

Growth of Labor Unions•Eugene Debs and Samuel

Gompers organized the first labor unions which used a tactic called collective bargaining

•Under collective bargaining a group of workers would threaten to walk off a job (strike) and shutdown production unless their demands were met

•Unions were successful in increasing workers pay, shortening work hours, and providing benefits.

•Several worker strikes failed however because business owners would hire new workers (usually immigrants) called scabs

above, workers in New York City march in the first labor day parade

Knights of Labor

• Formed in 1869, hoped to create a single national union by joining together all skilled and unskilled laborers.

• They opposed child labor and supported equal pay for women.

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

• Consisted of separate unions of skilled workers joined together into a federation.

• Craft unions limited their memberships to skilled workers.

• carpenters

• cigar makersSamuel Gompers, founder

Government’s Attitude

• Government leaders favored business and opposed unions:

• the greater influence of business

• protector of the economy

• public opinion