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Discover how America transformed from an agricultural nation to a leading industrial power through the abundance of natural resources, government support for business, and a growing urban population. Learn about key inventions, the influence of the railroad, the rise of big business, and the government regulations imposed to prevent monopolies.
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Technology & Industrial Growth Natural Resources Fuel Industrialization • America was considered an agricultural nation until after the Civil War. • By 1920 it had become the leading industrial power in the world. Why? • Three Reasons: • A wealth of natural resources • Government support for business • Growing urban population that provided both cheap labor and markets for new products
Natural Resources • Oil (black gold) - In 1859, Edwin Drake successfully used a steam engine to drill for oil from the ground. • Coal • Water • Iron – contains carbon, which makes steel rust • Steel – Two men developed a process to remove carbon from the iron, to make steel
Bessemer Process • Henry Bessemer, a British manufacturer and William Kelly, an American iron maker, around 1850, developed a cheap and efficient manufacturing process for steel. • The process involved injecting air into molten iron to remove the carbon and other impurities. • By 1860, the Bessemer process was replaced by the open-hearth process. This process enabled the manufacturers to produce steel from scrap metal as well as other raw materials.
Immigrants Come to America and the workforce grows • Europeans and Asians immigrate to America because of politics, religion, and crop failures • Willing to work for low wages • Drought in U.S. Heartland
Capitalism Encourages Growth • Entrepreneurs - people who invest money into business fuel growth of industry. • Factories, railroads, mines create jobs and attract foreign investors.
Government Policies Encourage Free Enterprise • Free land to railroads to connect east and west coasts • Protected Tariffs- taxes placed on imported goods so people would buy locally • Laissez Faire Policies allowed businesses to run with little government regulation
Innovation and Inventions • Patent- grant by the federal government giving an inventor the exclusive right to develop, use, and sell an invention for a set period of time. • Businesses invested heavily into growing new innovations and expanding old ones.
Inventions and Patents • Thomas Edison- received more than 1000 patents for his new inventions (created an idea for a power plant to light certain sectors of cities) • George Westinghouse-developed technology to send electricity over long distances.
Typewriter – was invented by Christopher Sholes in 1867. • Telephone – was invented by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson in 1876. • These two inventions created new jobs for women. Women made up 5% of all office workers in 1870, by 1910 they made up 40% of the clerical workers.
The Influence of the Railroad • In 1869, the first transcontinental railroad was completed. This linked the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. • Communities operated on their own time, when the sun was directly over your community it was noon.
Professor C.F. Dowd proposed that the earth be divided into 24 time zones, one for each hour of the day. • It was not until 1883 that everyone synchronized their watches. • The U.S. Congress did not officially adopt railroad time until 1918. • Company Towns - George M Pullman built a factory in Illinois and a city that provided for almost all the workers needs, i.e., houses, doctors, and shops.
Technology and Transportation • George Westinghouse created the air braking system. • Refrigerated cars were introduced • Railroads would allow for mass quantities of goods to be shipped from coast to coast
Industrialization • U.S. starts to export grain, steel, textiles to international markets across the world • Farms became mechanized meaning out of work laborers who had to move to cities to find jobs • Environmental impact becomes a problem leading to soil erosion and dust storms • Congress responded by setting aside protected lands which are now part the National Park Service.
Corporation – a number of people share the ownership of a business. • Cartel – businesses making the same product agree to limit their production and thus keep high prices.
John D. Rockefeller • Owned Standard Oil, used a trust to gain control of the oil industry in America. • Monopoly – complete control of a product or service. • Trust – companies assign their stock to a board of trustees, who combine them into a new organization.
Andrew Carnegie – started out as a private secretary in the railroad business and ended up owning a steel business. He introduced many new business strategies. 1. Vertical Integration – a process in which he bought out suppliers. 2. Horizontal Integration – a process where a company attempts to buy-out competitors or merge with them.
Social Darwinism • an economic and social philosophy – holding that a system of unrestrained competition will ensure the survival of the fittest.
Government Imposes Regulations • Sherman Antitrust Act – made it illegal to form a trust that interfered with free trade between states or with other countries. • Interstate Commerce Act (ICC) – this act reestablished the right of the federal government to supervise the railroad activities and other American business operations.
Factory workers toiled long hours – 12 hours a day, 6 days a week – in small hot, dark, and dirty workhouses known as sweatshops. • Collective Bargaining – negotiating as a group for higher wages or better working conditions.
Socialism – an economic and political philosophy that favors public, instead of private individuals, control of property and income
Union Leaders • Samuel Gompers –Would use strikes as a tactic to get his way. He was the president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). • Eugene V. Debs – leader of the American Railway Union ( A.R.U.) Was arrested and imprisoned for conspiring against interstate commerce during the Pullman Strike.
Violence and Tragedy • Great Strike of 1877 – workers of the B & O Railroad struck to protest a second wage cut. The government intervened when federal troops were sent in to end the strike. • The Haymarket Affair – On this day a bomb was thrown into the police line and several people were killed. After this the public began to turn against the labor movement. • Homestead Strike – took place at Carnegie Steel plant in Homestead, PA. Pinkerton’s private police force was called in and several workers were killed.
