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Chapter 19 - 20. Chapter 19. Railroads One of the most important developments of the post war period Railroads allowed for the transportation of goods and people farther and faster than ever before. Inventors Alexander Graham Bell Telephone George Eastman Kodak camera John Thurman
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Chapter 19 • Railroads • One of the most important developments of the post war period • Railroads allowed for the transportation of goods and people farther and faster than ever before
Inventors • Alexander Graham Bell • Telephone • George Eastman • Kodak camera • John Thurman • Vacum Cleaner • Thomas Edison • Storage battery, phonograph, movie projector, light bulb • Henry Ford • Assembly line production of automobiles
Big Business • John D. Rockefeller • At 26 Rockefeller bought partnered with others to open an oil refinery. Eventually he would control almost all oil production in the US through Standard Oil • Eventually Rockefeller developed the trust system ( the trading of stocks that gives management of a smaller company to a larger one) without technical ownership.
Andrew Carnegie: Steel • Carnegie was a self made man. The son of Scottish immigrants, he began working as a telegraph clerk on the railroad at age 15. By his early 20’s he had worked his way to Railroad Superintendent • After the Civil War, Carnegie left the railroad business to being investing in iron and later in steel companies • By 1890 Carnegie controlled the entire steel industry, mostly through the development of an idea called “vertical integration.” • Vertical Integration = owning all of the companies responsible necessary for the production of a given product, in this case, steel.
J.P. Morgan • Made his fortune as an investment banker • Morgan gained control of many industries by investing capital in exchange for stock in the company. • In 1901, Morgan bought Carnegie Steel, and consolidated it with other businesses to form the first billion-dollar company in the United States
Philanthropy • means “the use of money to benefit the community” • Almost all of the industrial leaders of the early 1900’s were also great philanthropists • They were by enlarge self made men, creating their own fortunes through hard work, rather than inherited wealth • As a result they did things with their money that would benefit the communities they lived in as a whole • Carnegie built libraries all over the country so that people could educate themselves, • Rockefeller and Carnegie both gave large sums to the development of the arts
Government Regulation • As more and more businesses were consolidated into the hands of just a few owners, people began to worry about monopolies • States began passing laws making trusts and monopolies illegal • In 1890 the federal government got involved by passing the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Industrial Workers • Working Conditions • Working conditions in the industrial age were very poor • Workers often had long hours for little pay and could be fired for little or no reason • Child labor was also prominent at the time, thousands of children would work 10 -12 hour days in factories and mines
Labor Unions • Begins with trade unions, designed to represent the workers in a particular type of business • The Knights of Labor • First major labor union in the US • Recruited and represented unskilled workers • Reached nearly 700,000 members by 1886 • American Federation of Labor • America’s second major labor union • founded to represent skilled workers • Led by Samuel Gompers for over twenty years
Strikes • Unions applied pressure to companies by going on Strike (walking off the job until an agreement was reached) • Haymarket Riot • McCormick Harvest Co. workers were on strike and had gathered to protest the killing of four strikers the day before • It is believed that an Anarchist group active in the area used this opportunity to strike, throwing a grenade into the police officers gathered to control the protest • Riots broke out, and it damaging the reputation of Unions
Homestead Strike • Workers at Carnegie’s Homestead Steel go on strike over a cut in wages • The company hired replacement workers and brought in armed guards to protect them • A gunfight between the striking workers and the guards left 10 dead and Homestead in chaos • The PA militia is sent to restore order, and the plant reopens with non-union workers under militia protection
Pullman Strike • The Pullman company manufactured railway cars • Pullman workers go on strike over wages • In support of them, the workers in the American Railway Union refuse to handle (connect and disconnect) Pullman cars • This significantly delays travel and the delivery of mail, etc. • The Federal government uses the excuse of interfering with mail delivery to step in, jail Eugene V. Debs (the ARU leader) and end the strike using federal troops.
Chapter 20 • Coming to America • The years following the Civil War saw the largest number of new immigrants to the US • Most of these people came from Eastern Europe and Asia, brining with them vastly different cultures • Most immigrants came either through Ellis Island in NYC, or Angel Island in San Francisco • When they arrived their names would be recorded, they would be asked a series of questions about occupation, family connections in the US and given a health exam.
Immigrants often found work in factories because they would work for low wages • Many of them formed their own small ethnic communities within major cities, giving rise to names like “China town” and “Little Italy” • Nativism: • Not everyone welcomed the immigrants, many saw them as a threat to their way of life because their languages and religious beliefs differed so greatly from those of most Americans • Congress responds to the nativists by passing tow pieces of legislation, the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Immigration Act of 1917. The first prohibited Chinese workers from coming to the country for 10 years, the second act required that immigrants be able to read and write in some language.
Life in the “Gilded Age • Poor: Lived primarily in large cities, in the slums, or “tentements.” Often 4 or 5 people would live in just one or two rooms, and share water and toilet facilities with several other families. Tenements were dirty and crowded. • Middle Class: Shop keepers, and small business owners made up most of the middle class. They usually lived in their own homes, with running access to water and after 1900, most had electricity • Wealthy: Lived the life of the rich and famous, huge mansions, and country estates, and the best of everything were a hallmark of this lifestyle.
Culture • Education: • This time period saw large changes come to education in America • The number of public high school increases dramatically giving more accesses to higher education then the middle and lower classes had ever had before • Higher education also becomes more open to women and minorities with the founding of colleges specifically for women and minorities. • Journalism and Literature • Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst become the greatest newspaper men of the age, utilizing the sensational style of “yellow journalism” • Mark Twain, Stephen Crane and Jack London are some of the classic American authors that write during this time
Music • Distinctly American music begins to come from this time period • John Philip Sousa, writes the stirring patriotic marches like “Stars and Stripes Forever” • We also see the development of jazz and ragtime music • Leisure Time • By the turn of the century the middle and upper class have more free time than ever to spend on leisure activities • Spectator sports (primarily baseball to begin with), Broadway and eventually “moving pictures” become the activities of choice for many Americans.
Ragtime http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPmruHc4S9Q • Stars and Stripes Forever http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mRn9chmRAY
