Postwar Industrialization, Labor Unions and Populists “The Gilded Age” 1877-1910
THE RISE OF INDUSTRY AND THE GROWTH OF UNIONS IN THE GILDED AGE Industrialization.
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Transcript of THE RISE OF INDUSTRY AND THE GROWTH OF UNIONS IN THE GILDED AGE Industrialization.
THE RISE OF INDUSTRY AND THE GROWTH OF UNIONS IN THE GILDED AGE
Industrialization
Reasons for rapid spread of industry after the Civil War
ResourcesExpanding populationFavorable government policiesCapitalNew technologyTransportation and communication
improvements
New types of business combinations
Methods of combining companies? Pool: competing businesses combine to eliminate
competition Trust: one large group holds in interest of another Holding company: owns controlling interests in other
companies Merger: combines 2 or more organization
Emergence of new combinations Horizontal Corporation: buy all competition Vertical Corporation (Carnegie Steel)
Impacts industry has on American life?
National wealth increasesLonger life expectancyStandard of living improvesWidening gap between upper and lower classNew leisure timeEducational advancesAgricultural RevolutionUnionization beginsImmigration spurredUrbanization
Railroads: The First Big Business
End of Civil War: less than 35,000 miles of track. 1900: 193,000 miles of track.
1867 Cornelius Vanderbilt, NY Central; Thomas A. Scott, PA RR; Jay Gould, Kansas Pacific in SW; Henry Villard, Northern Pacific, etc. Standardization for travel = time zones, 1883
Iron, Oil, and Electricity
Bessemer Process: cheaply made steel. Pittsburgh, Cleveland
Petroleum refineries growCompetition and Monopoly: RR
Competition cut into RR profits: rebates for bulk shipping, road suffered (especially during Panic of 1893)
Financiers: J. P. Morgan, controlled many RR companies
Bell and Edison
Competition and Monopoly
Carnegie Steel: Pittsburgh Standard Oil: Cleveland
and John D. Rockefeller (controlled 90% of nation’s oil by 1879!), cut prices locally to force small businesses to close. Stake in RR, bribery. “Meticulous attention to detail.”
Retailing and Utilities: Electric companies
Americans are AMBIVILENT…
Laissez-faire attitudesRising materialismCarnegie’s defense: Gospel of WealthReformers: George 1879 Progress and
Poverty, Bellamy’s Looking Backward, 2000-1887, H. D. Lloyd’s “Wealth Against Commonwealth” attacks Standard Oil
Labor Movement
Reasons unions form?Major Early Unions
Knights of Labor, AFL, CIO (Gompers, Debs)
Types of peaceful settlements Collective bargaining, mediation, arbitration
Weapons used by Labor if negotiations break down Picketing, boycott, strikes
Unions, cont’d
Types of strikes Sitdown Wildcat: union members walk off job despite union
leaders Slowdown Sympathy General
Tactics used to gain strength Closed/union shop, checkoff (automatic payroll
deduction), union label (fight to place label in manufactured product)
Unions, cont’d
Weapons used by management if negotiations break down Lockouts, strikebreakers, injunctions
Tactics used by management to weaken unions Open shop, blacklist, “yellow-dog” contracts, company
unions, labor spies (Pinkertons)Laws that have aided Labor
Chinese Exclusion Act 1882, Contracts Labor Law 1885, Bureau of Labor 1884: Department of Labor 1913
Major Labor Strife Railroad Strike 1877, Haymarket Affair 1886,
Homestead Strike 1892, Pullman Strike 1894
Anti-Chinese Cartoons, Thomas Nast
Court Cases
Munn v. Illinois, 1877: Any business that served a public interest was subject to state control
Wabash v. Illinois, 1886: led to creation of Interstate Commerce Act all charges by RR “shall be reasonable and just” and ICC supervises RR Not particularly effective
Sherman Antitrust Act 1890: any trust in restraint of trade or commerce among states or with foreign nations ILLEGAL Rarely followed: U.S. vs. E.C. Knight Company (1895)
98% of sugar refining NOT a monopoly?!?!