INDUSTRY COMES OF AGE 1865-

1900

IRON HORSE

Outburst of RR Construction 1865 = 35,000 miles 1900 = 192,556 miles

Congress gave land grants / loans Changed communities = West

Competition

Made local transit reliable

TRANSCONTINENTAL RR

Central Pacific Sacramento, California Employed thousands of Chinese immigrants 690 miles (1,110 km) of track

Union Pacific Omaha, Nebraska Hired Irish immigrants and out-of-work Civil War veterans laid 1,087 miles (1,749 km) of track

Promontory Point = Utah May 10, 1869 Golden spike

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Transcontinental_railroad_route.png

PROMONTORY POINT

CONT.

Harsh working ConditionsAttacked by Native AmericansAccidents DiseasesKilled thousands each year

2,000 employees killed and 20,000 injured

RR CONSOLIDATION/ MECHANIZATION

1860’sGeorge M. Pullman Manufactured sleepers and other railroad cars Built a town for his employees Under company control

Westinghouse air brakeEfficiency and safety

REVOLUTION BY RR

Iron, Coal, Steel, Lumber, and Glass Industries grew rapidly Trying to keep pace with the demand for materials and parts

Growth of towns Linking isolated cities, towns, and settlements Began to specialize in particular products

Chicago --- stockyard products

Immigration

Promoted trade - interdependence

CONT.

Transformed the diverse regions of the country into a United Nation

1869Professor C.F. DowdEarths surface be divided into 24 hour time zones

U.S. would contain 4 zonesEastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific

Railroad companies endorsed the plan

WRONGDOING IN RR

Farmers upset with railroad corruption

Grangers Farmers organization founded in 1867 Demanded governmental control over the railroad industry Upset by misuse of government land grants Kept farmers in debt = prices Charged different customers different

FARMERS Grangers took political actionPressed for laws = protect interests Establish maximum freight / passenger rates Prohibit discriminationGranger Laws

Munn v. Illinois - 1877Supreme Court upheld the Granger lawsRegulate the railroad for the benefit of farmers and consumers

The Federal government’s right to regulate private industry to serve the public interest

CONT.

Grangers triumph --- short lived Supreme court ruled that a state could not set rates on interstate

commerce

Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific RR Company v. Illinois

Public outraged Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act = 1887

Right of the Federal Government to supervise railroad activities

Established 5-member Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

MIRACLES OF MECHANIZATION 1894US 1st in ManufacturingMillionairesInvestors from EuropeInterchangeable partsUnskilled labor

1860 -90440,000 patents

CONT.

Christopher Sholes Invented the typewriter ---- 1867

Changed the world of work

Alexander Graham Bell Invented the telephone ---- 1876 Worldwide communication

CONT.

Thomas Alva EdisonPioneer in the new industrial frontierWorlds first research laboratory

Menlo Park, New Jersey Phonograph, Mimeograph, Dictaphone, Moving picture Incandescent light bulb ---1879 Developed an entire system for producing and distributing electrical power Safer and less expensive

SUPREMACY OF STEEL

“Steel is King” Skyscrapers, transportation = food, shelter

Bessemer-Kelly Process Iron is soft - tends to break and rust Removed the carbon from iron ---- produces Steel

THE TRUST TITAN EMERGES Andrew Carnegie

1873 Entered into the steel business Carnegie Steel Company Pittsburgh

1899 Manufactured more steel than all the factories in Great Britain / Germany

Excellent management practicesEliminate middle manPartnerships Make better products – cheaply New machinery / techniques Hired talented people – offered stock Encouraged competition

CONT.

Vertical Integration --- Bought out suppliers Coal fields and iron mines, ore freighters, and railroad lines

Horizontal Integration --- Bought out competing steel producers Companies producing similar products merge

1901Produced the largest portion of the nation’s steel

CARNEGIE AND OTHER SULTANS OF STEEL

Monopoly A company buys out all it competitors Complete control over the industry

Production, wages, and prices

Holding Company Corporation that buys out the stock of other companies

JP Morgan = Interlocking Directorates 1901 --- bought Carnegie Steel

$400 million = United States Steel

ROCKEFELLER

Standard Oil Company - Ohio Joined with competing companies in trust agreements Turned their stock over to a group of trustees People who ran the separate companies as on large corporation Entitled to dividends on profits earned by the trusts

Used trusts to gain total control of the oil industry

1870Processed 2 -3% of the country’s crude oilWithin a decade controlled 95%

CONT.

Paid employees extremely low wages

Drove competitors out of business Sold oil at a lower price than it cost to produce it When he controlled the market --- hiked prices up

Critics called business practices = Robber Barons

Gave away over 500 million Rockefeller Foundation

GOSPEL OF WEALTH

Charles Darwin --- Biological Evolution Individuals of a species flourish and pass their traits along to the

next generation Natural Selection

Weed out less suited individualsBest adapted survive

Laissez Fair Economists justification for the marketplace not to be regulated

GOVERNMENT TACKLES THE TRUST EVIL Government was worried that corporations would stifle free competition

Sherman Anti-Trust Act = 1890 Made it illegal to form a trust that interfered with free trade

between states or with other countries Prosecuting companies was difficult = loopholes

UNIONS

Unsafe working conditions --- long hours Drew workers together --- Unions

Steel Mills 7 day work week

Seamstresses 12 hours a day – 6 days a week

No vacation, sick leave, unemployment or reimbursement for injuries

UNIONS

1882 675 laborers were killed in work related accidents each week

Wages were so low that families could not survive unless everyone worked

Iron Clad Oaths or Yellow-Dog Contracts

UNIONS

1866 National Labor Union – NLU

Colored National Labor Union – CNLU

Persuaded congress to legalize an eight hour day for government workers

6 yrs. = 60,000 membersSkilled, unskilled, farmersExcluded Chinese

UNIONS

1869 Noble Order of the Knights of Labor

Secret Society = private rituals, passwords Include all workers in 1 union Men, women, whites, blacks Barred “non-producers”

Economic and social reform Codes for safety and health

8 hour work day

Haymarket Square = May,1886

UNIONS

1886 American Federation of Labor – AFL

Samuel Gompers – Cigar maker Association of self-governing national unions Wages, working conditions Collective Bargaining Negotiation between representatives of labor and management

Strikes, boycotts, walkouts 500,000 members - 1900

CONT.

1881 – 190023,000 strikesInvolved 6,610,000 workers

Total loss $450 millionEmbraced small minority of working people3%

Labor Day = 1894