Goal 5 Industrialization and the Gilded Age

THE EXPANSION OF INDUSTRY

At the end of the 19th century, natural

resources, creative ideas, and growing

markets fuel an industrial boom.

THE AGE OF THE RAILROADS

The growth and consolidation of railroads

benefits the nation but also leads to

corruption and required government

regulation.

Driving the Golden Spike joining the Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory

Point, Utah

RAILROADS SPAN TIME AND SPACE

Railroads Encourage Growth

New Towns and Markets

First transcontinental railroad completed,

spans the nation

Railroad Time: dividing earth’s surface into

24 time zones - U.S. railroads, towns adopt

time zones

NATURAL RESOURCES FUEL INDUSTRIALIZATION

By 1920s, U.S. is world’s leading industrial

power, due to:

wealth of natural resources

government support for business

growing urban population

BLACK GOLD

Native Americans make fuel, medicine from oil

Edwin L. Drake successfully uses steam engine to drill for oil

Petroleum-refining industry first makes kerosene, then gasoline

BESSEMER STEEL PROCESS

Abundant deposits of coal, iron spur industry

Bessemer process puts air into iron to

remove carbon to make steel

Cheap, efficient way to mass produce steel.

NEW USES FOR STEEL

Used in railroads,

barbed wire, farm

machines

Changes construction:

Brooklyn Bridge; steel-

framed skyscrapers

Flat Iron Building – an early NYC skyscraper built with steel framework

THE POWER OF ELECTRICITY

Thomas Alva Edison

Incandescent light bulb

Creates system for electrical production, distribution

Electricity changes business; runs numerous machines

Becomes available in homes; encourages invention of appliances

Allows manufacturers to locate plants anyplace; industry grows

Edison’s Latent Electric Lamp

INVENTIONS CHANGE LIFESTYLES

Christopher Sholes invents

typewriter

Alexander Graham Bell -

telephone

Office work changes;

women are 40% of clerical

workers

Westinghouse – power

generation and appliances

CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY (ROBBER BARONS)

John Rockefeller –Standard Oil

Andrew Carnegie –Carnegie Steel (U.S. Steel)

J.P. Morgan – Banking and Finance

“Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt – shipping and railroads.

American Industrialist leaders including Carnegie (center), JP Morgan (left of Carnegie) and Henry C Frick (right of Carnegie)

Caption reads: History repeats itself – Robber Barons of the Middle Ages and the Robber Barons of Today

GROWTH AND CONSOLIDATION

Businesses try to control industry with mergers - buy out competitors

Form monopolies - control production, wages, prices – get rid of competition, prices go up

Holding companies buy all the stock of other companies

Trusts exchange companies’ stock for trust certificates.

trustees run separate companies as if one

CARNEGIE’S INNOVATIONS

New Business Strategies:

Carnegie searches for ways to make better

products more cheaply

Uses vertical integration—buys out suppliers

to control materials, price and quality

Drives out the competition and controls

almost entire steel industry

ROCKEFELLER’S INNOVATIONS

Rockefeller created the Standard Oil Trust

Used the strategy of Horizontal Consolidation

Merge, buy out or drive out the competition

Standard Oil once controlled 90% of oil in

U.S.

Artist’s view of the Standard Oil Trust

SOCIAL DARWINISM AND BUSINESS

Darwin’s theory of biological evolution: the

best-adapted survive

Social Darwinism, or social evolution, based

on Darwin’s theory; only the strongest

businesses survive

Economists use Social Darwinism to justify

doctrine of laissez faire

A NEW DEFINITION OF SUCCESS

Idea of survival, success of the most capable

appeals to wealthy

Notion of individual responsibility in line with

Protestant ethic

See riches as sign of God’s favor; poor must

be lazy, inferior

Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth – it is the duty

of those with money to help the less

fortunate.

Carnegie’s Gospel of

Wealth – it is the duty

of those with money to

help the less fortunate

SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT

Government thinks

expanding corporations stifle

free competition

Sherman Antitrust Act: trust

is illegal if it interferes with

free trade

Prosecuting companies

difficult; government stops

enforcing act

Trusts – the Main

Issue

BIG BUSINESS AND LABOR

The expansion of industry results in the

growth of big business and prompts laborers

to form unions to better their lives.

Better pay, better hours, better conditions.

LABOR UNIONS EMERGE

Long Hours, Danger, Exploitation, unsafe conditions

Most workers have 12 hr days, 6 day workweeks

perform repetitive, mind-dulling tasks

no vacation, sick leave, injury compensation

To survive, families need all members to work, including children

Sweatshops, tenement workshops often only jobs for women, children

require few skills; pay lowest wages

Child laborer in textile factory

EARLY LABOR ORGANIZING

National Labor Union—first large-scale

national organization

Local chapters reject blacks; Colored

National Labor Union forms

Knights of Labor open to women, blacks,

unskilled

Knights support 8-hour day, equal pay,

arbitration

Colored National Labor Union

CRAFT UNIONS

Craft unions include skilled workers from one or more trades

Samuel Gompers helps found American Federation of Labor (AFL)

AFL uses collective bargaining for better wages, hours, conditions

AFL strikes successfully, wins higher pay, shorter workweek

INDUSTRIAL UNIONS

Industrial unions include skilled, unskilled

workers in an industry

Eugene V. Debs forms American Railway

Union; uses strikes

SOCIALISM AND THE IWW

Some labor activists turn to socialism:

government control of business, property

equal distribution of wealth

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or Wobblies

Organized by radical unionists, socialists; include African Americans

Industrial unions give unskilled workers dignity, solidarity

THE GREAT STRIKE OF 1877

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad strike spreads to

other lines

Governors say impeding interstate

commerce; federal troops intervene

Federal Troops intervene in Great Strike of 1877

THE HAYMARKET AFFAIR

3,000 gather at Chicago’s Haymarket

Square, protest police brutality

Violence ensues; bomb is thrown into police

8 charged with inciting riot, convicted

Public opinion turns against labor movement

Marks beginning of end for Knights of Labor

3,000 gather at Chicago’s Haymarket Square, protest police brutality – violence

erupts

THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE

Carnegie Steel workers strike over pay cuts

Win battle against Pinkertons; National

Guard reopens plant

Steelworkers do not remobilize for 45 years

The Carnegie Steel Company locked workers out of its Homestead Works in

June of 1892. The lockout touched off the deadliest labor battle in U.S. history.

COMPANY TOWNS

George M. Pullman builds railcar factory on

Illinois prairie

Provides for workers: housing, doctors,

shops, sports field

Company tightly controls residents to ensure

stable work force

THE PULLMAN COMPANY STRIKE

Pullman lays off 3,000, cuts wages but not

rents; workers strike

Pullman refuses arbitration; violence ensues;

federal troops sent

Debs jailed, most workers fired, many

blacklisted

Pullman Strike of 1894

GOVERNMENT SIDES WITH EMPLOYERS

Management and Gov’t Pressure Unions

Employers forbid unions; turn Sherman

Antitrust Act against labor

Gov’t sends troops to break up strikes

Legal limitations cripple unions, but

membership rises

THROUGH THE “GOLDEN DOOR”

1870–1920, about 20 million Europeans

arrive in U.S.

Some immigrants seek better lives; others

temporary jobs

Many flee religious persecution: Jews driven

from Russia by pogroms

Flee war, famine, drought, criminal behavior,

etc.

OTHER IMMIGRANTS

About 300,000 Chinese arrive; earliest attracted by gold rush

work in railroads, farms, mines, domestic service, business

Japanese work on Hawaiian plantations, then go to West Coast (more than 200,000)

About 260,000 immigrants from West Indies; most seek industrial jobs

Mexicans flee political turmoil; after 1910, 700,000 arrive

Chinese Immigrants arrive in San Francisco Looking for Work

COMING ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

Almost all immigrants travel by steamship, most in steerage

Ellis Island—chief U.S. immigration station, in New York Harbor

physical exam by doctor; seriously ill not admitted

Inspector checks documents to see if meets legal requirements

1892–1924, about 17 million immigrants processed at Ellis Island

European Immigrants arrive at NYC’s Ellis Island

COMING ACROSS THE PACIFIC

Angel Island - immigrant processing station

in San Francisco Bay

Immigrants endure harsh questioning, long

detention for admission

Immigrants are tested for disease on Angel Island

IMMIGRATION BEFORE/AFTER 1880

OLD IMMIGRANTS NEW IMMIGRANTS

N and W Eur.

Fair hair and skin

Some education

Some resources

Protestant

S and E Eur., Asia, Mexico

Darker hair and skin

More illiterate

Poorer

Mostly Catholic, Jews and Orthodox.

A NEW LIFE

Cooperation for Survival

Immigrants must create new life: find work,

home, learn new ways

Many seek people who share cultural values,

religion, language

ethnic communities (enclave) form

Friction develops between “hyphenated”

Americans, native-born

EDUCATION FOR IMMIGRANTS

Immigrants encouraged to attend school, be

Americanized

Some resent suppression of their native

languages

Many public school systems have readings

from Protestant Bible

Catholics have parochial schools

THE RISE OF NATIVISM

Melting pot—in U.S. people blend by

abandoning native culture

immigrants don’t want to give up cultural

identity

Nativism—hatred of immigrants -- favoritism

toward native-born Americans

Nativists believe Anglo-Saxons superior to

other ethnic groups

Nativists believe

Anglo-Saxons

superior to other

ethnic groups

ANTI-ASIAN SENTIMENT

Nativist -- fear Chinese

immigrants who work

for less

political pressure to

restrict Asian

immigration

Chinese Exclusion Act

bans entry to most

Chinese

THE GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT

Nativist fears extend to Japanese, most

Asians in early 1900s

San Francisco segregates Japanese

schoolchildren

Gentlemen’s Agreement - Japan limits

emigration

in return, U.S. repeals segregation

Nativist fears extend to

Japanese, most

Asians in early 1900s

RAPID URBANIZATION

Industrialization leads to urbanization, or growth of cities

Three groups who move to the cities to find jobs:

Immigrants

Displaced Farmers - technology decreases need for laborers

Southern Blacks: move to cities in North, West to escape racial

violence

find segregation, discrimination in North too

competition for jobs between blacks, white immigrants causes tension

THE CHALLENGES OF URBANIZATION

The rapid growth of cities force people to

contend with problems of:

housing, transportation, water, and

sanitation.

crime, fire, disease, lack of jobs

NYC tenement slums

URBAN OPPORTUNITIES

Most immigrants settle in cities; get cheap

housing, factory jobs

Americanization movement—assimilate

people into main culture

Ethnic communities provide social support

URBAN PROBLEMS

Housing

Working-class families live in houses on

outskirts or boardinghouses

Later, row houses built for single families

Immigrants take over row houses, 2–3

families per house

Dumbbell Tenements - multifamily urban

dwellings, are overcrowded, unsanitary

Dumbbell Tenements - multifamily urban dwellings, are overcrowded, unsanitary

TRANSPORTATION

Mass transit—

move large

numbers of people

along fixed routes

– allows people to

move out from the

city center

Electric trolleys

are the most

efficient

PROBLEMS OF OVERCROWDING

Water -- inadequate or no piped water, indoor

plumbing rare

Sanitation

Streets: manure, open gutters, factory

smoke, poor trash collection

Contractors hired to sweep streets, collect

garbage, clean outhouses

often do not do job properly

PROBLEMS OF OVERCROWDING

Crime:

As population grows, thieves flourish

Early police forces too small to be effective

Fire hazards: limited water, wood houses,

candles, kerosene heaters

Most firefighters volunteers, not always

available

REFORMERS MOBILIZE

Social Gospel movement—preaches salvation through service to poor

The Settlement House Movement

Settlement houses—community centers in slums, help immigrants

Social welfare reformers work to relieve urban poverty

provide educational, cultural, social services

send visiting nurses to the sick

help with personal, job, financial problems

Jane Addams founds Hull House in Chicago

Hull House in Chicago

AMERICAN LEISURE

Amusement Parks

Cities begin setting aside green space for recreation

Amusement parks built on outskirts with picnic grounds, rides

Bicycling and Tennis

Early bicycles dangerous; at first, bicycling is male-only sport

Tennis imported from Britain; becomes popular

Amusement parks built on outskirts with picnic grounds, rides

SPECTATOR SPORTS

Americans become avid fans of spectator

sports

Boxing and baseball become profitable

businesses

POLITICS IN THE GILDED AGE

Local and national political corruption in the

19th century leads to calls for reform.

THE EMERGENCE OF POLITICAL MACHINES

Political machine—organized group that

controls city political party

Give services to voters and businesses for

political/financial support

Immigrants and the Machine

Machines help immigrants with naturalization,

jobs, housing

THE ROLE OF THE POLITICAL BOSS

Whether or not city boss serves as mayor,

he:

controls access to city jobs, business licenses

influences courts, municipal agencies

arranges building projects, community services

Bosses paid by businesses, get voters’

loyalty, extend influence

Bosses like Boss

Tweed, were paid by

businesses, got voters’

loyalty, extended their

influence

MUNICIPAL GRAFT AND SCANDAL

Election Fraud and Graft

Machines use electoral fraud to win elections

Graft—illegal use of political influence for

personal gain

Machines take kickbacks and bribes to allow

legal/illegal activities

THE TWEED RING SCANDAL

William M. Tweed, or Boss Tweed, heads

Tammany Hall in NYC

Leads Tweed Ring, defrauds city of millions

of dollars

Cartoonist Thomas Nast helps arouse public

outrage

Tweed Ring broken, Tweed sent to prison

Cartoonist Thomas Nast

helps arouse public

outrage against Boss

Tweed

CIVIL SERVICE REPLACES PATRONAGE

Patronage Spurs Reform

Patronage—government jobs to those who help candidate get elected

Civil service (government administration) are all patronage jobs

Some appointees not qualified; some use position for personal gain

Reformers press for merit system of hiring for civil service

REFORM UNDER HAYES, GARFIELD, AND

ARTHUR

Stalwart Chester A. Arthur is vice-president

Garfield gives patronage jobs to reformers; is shot and killed

As president, Arthur urges Congress to pass civil service law

Pendleton Civil Service Act—appointments based on exam score

CRÉDIT MOBILIER SCANDAL

Wish for profit leads some railroad magnates

to corruption

Union Pacific stockholders form construction

company, Crédit Mobilier

overpay for laying track, pocket profits

Republican politicians implicated; reputation

of party tarnished

TECHNOLOGY AND CITY LIFE

Skyscrapers:

Invention of elevators, internal steel skeletons lead to skyscrapers

Skyscrapers solve urban problem of limited, expensive space

Electric Transit:

Before Civil War, horse-drawn streetcars run on iron rails

Electric streetcars (trolleys) run from suburbs to downtown

Early skyscrapers – Bowling Green building in NYC & Home Insurance building Chicago

ENGINEERING AND URBAN PLANNING

Steel-cable suspension bridges link city

sections

Need for open spaces inspires science of

urban planning

Frederick Law Olmstead spearheads

movement for planned urban parks

helps design Central Park

Manhattan Steel Cable Suspension Bridge