World Class Education www.kean.edu
World Class Educationwww.kean.edu
The New Industrial Order
in
The Post-Civil War Period
1
Topic 7
Natural resources – iron and oil
Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments
Favorable state and federal Government policies
Immigration – influx of cheap labor
New sources of power – oil / electricity
American inventions and innovations
Improved transportation – regional and transcontinental railroads
Giant corporations drive industrialization after the Civil War
2
New industrial products – factory-made goods
Improved standard of living begins
Urban development
Increased overseas trade / imperialism
Problems of unregulated capitalism –
monopolies and ruthless competition
Great fortunes accumulated
3
Big corporations begin to replace single-owner business / partnerships with limited capital
Unfettered Competition
Major investments in railroads, steel, oil, telegraph and telephone communications
Corporations chartered to act as an “artificial legal person”
Emergence of powerful corporate tycoons
4
Railroad empire
begins1869
New York to Chicago
“What do I care for
the law? Haven’t I
got the Power?”
5
Oil empire
Standard Oil Company
of Ohio, 1870
90% of nation’s oil
refineries
Supreme Court limits
Rockefeller monopoly
6
Steel empire
Carnegie Steel Company 1900
Iron ore deposits
Railroads
Steamships
Steel mills
The Gospel of Wealth -the uses of wealth
7
Finance – industrial
consolidation
US Steel
Corporation
American Telephone
and Telegraph
General Electric
Northern Pacific RR
8
Gustavus Swift –
meatpacking
Philip D. Armour –
meatpacking
Charles A. Pillsbury –
flour milling
James B. Duke –
cigarette manufacturing
Andrew Mellon –
aluminum
9
Created new industries Efficiency Order out of economic
chaos Better services Improved quality of
products America becomes an
industrial giant Philanthropies –
endowment of museums, universities, libraries
Exploitation of workers Corruption of
government Greed Destruction of small
producers Restraint of competition
- monopolies Abuse of consumers Laissez faire economics
10
Haymarket Affair, 1886
Homestead Steel Strike, 1892
Pullman Strike, 1894
Anthracite Coal Strike, 1902
Knights of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The Industrial Workers of the World
Low pay
Long hours
Unsafe working conditions
No minimum wage
Employer lockouts
11
“Mark Twain called the late 19th century the "Gilded Age." In the popular view, the late 19th century was a period of greed and guile, when rapacious robber barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers engaged in shady business practices and vulgar displays of wealth. It is easy to caricature the Gilded Age as an era of corruption, scandal-plagued politics, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. But it is more useful to think of this period as modern America's formative era, when the rules of modern politics and business practice were just beginning to be written.”
from www.digitalhistory.uh.edu
12
Charles R. Morris, The Tycoons: How Andrew
Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P.
Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy
Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons: The Great
American Capitalists, 1861–1901
Leon Litwack, The American Labor Movement
13