Title: Industrialization Industrialization will change almost all aspects of American society in the second half of the 19 th century. What is industrialization? How would it affect the daily life of Americans?
Title: Inventions The 19 th century was the era of great inventions. Rank the list of inventions below from most to least important. 1851: Ice cream invented by Jacob Fussell 1863: Roller skates invented by James Plimpton 1870: Chewing gum invented by Thomas Adams 1884: Fountain pen invented by L.E. Waterman 1885: Electric toothbrush invented by Dr. G.A. Scott 1888: Revolving door invented by Theophilu von Kannel 1893: Breakfast cereal invented by William Kellogg 1893: Zipper invented by Whitcomb Judson
Title: Unions What is a labor union? What is its purpose? What type of industries have unions? What is a strike? How does collective bargaining work? Why would you personally join a union?
Title: Factory Life Describe life in a factory. Who typically worked in factories? Where were they located? What were the working conditions like? Etc.
Title: Gilded Era Issues What kind of problems did America face in the late 1800s?
Class Projects You and your partner will choose one of the problems of the late 1800s and will complete a class project to teach the class about that problem and how to solve it.
I. The Machine Age (1865-1900) A. America was becoming increasingly industrialized. The 19th century saw a huge growth in new inventions that increase the nations' productive capacity and improved the network of transportation and communication. B. New inventions led to the founding of new corporations, which produced new wealth and new jobs.
Relative Share of World Manufacturing
C. Iron and steel--central to development of American industry 1. Andrew Carnegie--Scottish immigrant who built the steel industry with a mill that integrated all stages of refinement process (from ore to finished rails)
2. The technology of steel making changed. a. The Bessemer (burning out impurities) process was introduced in the 1850 s so that steel was cheaper and easier to produce than wrought iron.
b. Andrew Carnegie imported this technology into the U.S. and exploited it fully. 1. The steel plants needed massive quantities of raw materials to meet the heavy demands, especially coal.
Steel Production
D. Transportation Boom 1. Railroad growth fueled industrial development. Over 100,000 miles of track were laid between 1877 and 1893, doubling the U.S. network a. Standardization of gauge (width of tracks set at 4 ft., 8 1/2 in.) encouraged development
b. In 1883 railroads instituted four standard time zones to make it easier to organize schedules.
c. Adoption of steel rails allowed the trains to carry heavier loads. d. Massive grants of American land (131 million acres from federal government, 49 million acres from states) paid for the railroads.
2. Automobiles a. The refining of oil led to the development of motors. 1. Engine designers tried to find a way to adapt gasoline engines to horseless carriages.
2. 1893- the Duryeas built the first practical motorcar in the US. 3. The automobile industry grew rapidly in the 1890's. Charles Duryea
Kitty Hawk, 1903 3. Airplanes a. A working internal combustion engine made air flight possible as well. 1. European innovations led to the first flights in Germany and later France. 2. Wright Brothers- 1903- made the first manned flight in the US at Kitty Hawk, NC
E. Oil & John D. Rockefeller 1. First oil derrick drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859
2. Rockefeller organized Standard Oil Co. and bought out smaller refiners 3. Organized trusts to combine companies, reduce competition, and increase profits a. Rockefeller had a monopoly of the oil industry until they found oil in Texas in the early 1900s.
F. Communication 1. Telegraph- was built starting in the 1840's and the first telegraph linked England and America in 1861.
2. Telephone- In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell transmitted his voice over the line to his assistant, Come here, Watson, I want you. a. In 1877 Bell and others formed the Bell Telephone Company, later AT&T.
G. Electricity 1. Thomas Alva Edison was a professional inventor. He created a lab at Menlo Park, NJ for research. His inventions are classified two ways: a. New products b. Improving an existing product
2. The Phonograph in 1877 was his first well-known invention. 3. In 1879 Edison and his lab perfected the light bulb and the electric generator. 4. 1882 Edison Electric Illuminating Company supplied electric power to customers in NYC.
5. Other improvements or inventions were the battery, the dictaphone, the mimeograph and the motion picture. 6. Electricity changed how we lit our homes and our cities. Gaslamps were replaced by electric lights that lit up the night and made it safe to be out after dark.
II. Large Scale Business A. After the Civil War businesses started to consolidate into larger companies. 1. This concentration of businesses led to wealthy, extremely powerful business owners. i.e. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, J.D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford.
B. By the 1870's competition had reduced many industries to a few large and highly efficient corporations. 1. It was cheaper to own all of the businesses that supplied your own rather than to buy the products from other companies.
2. This vertical integration of business streamlined some industries. a. Gustavus Swift applied this to the meatpacking industry. 1. He owned a meatpacking company, refrigerated railroad cars, refrigerated warehouses in most cities and wagons to deliver his goods to butcher shops. 2. He could get his product from the cattle market in Chicago to local butcher shops across the country.
3. Industrialists bought up all of their competition as well. a. John D. Rockefeller bought out or ran out of business all other oil companies to gain a competitive advantage in business. b. This process of owning all of the competition is called horizontal integration or a monopoly.
4. The process of mass distribution was used in many businesses to deliver their goods to the whole country. 5. Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogs opened the entire country to the same consumer products. A New Yorker could have the same products as an Idaho farmer.
C. When a single company controls an entire market it is a monopoly. 1. The government tried to limit the power and control of big businesses by passing laws that outlawed one business from owning another. These laws tried to prevent vertical integration and to break monopolies. a. Businesses bypassed these regulations by forming trust companies that held the shares in trust rather than owning them outright.
III. Impact of Industrialization on the United States A. The depression of 1873 had ground the economy to a halt; the recovery by 1877 put the United States on a 15-year growth cycle. 1. The economy grew 150% from 1877-1892 2. Wages increased and prices decreased, everyone in America was doing better financially for the first time in decades.
B. New technologies changed the way we ate, cleaned and worked. 1. Refrigeration and canning of food made food available that was out of season or from other geographic areas. The railroad and later refrigerated railroad cars made it possible to move food to widespread markets. 2. Many of the inventions were labor saving devices for the home; dishwashers, vacuums, etc.
3. Improvements to machinery streamlined the factory floors and eventually Ford introduced the assembly line.
IV. Organization of American Labor A. Industrialization set people in motion. 1. Americans moved from farms to cities, but took up white-collar jobs. 2. Immigrants took places in the factory system both as skilled and unskilled labor. 3. Women were in workplace in large numbers. By 1900 women made up 25% of the nonfarm labor.
4. Women's work fell into 3 categories: a. Domestic servants b. Female white collar jobs- teaching, nursing, office staff, telephone operators Filing Section, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., New York, NY. Early Office Museum
c. Industrial labor in mills, garment trades, and light occupations. At the turn of the century the wage women factory workers came to roughly $7 a week, $3 less than that of unskilled men and $5 below the average of all industrial workers. for Indianapolis mill workers
B. Factories removed the individuality of workers. Workers had to perform highly specific, repetitive tasks and could take little pride in their work. C. The quest for efficiency took its toll on the American worker, demanding longer days and worse working conditions.
1. Workers constantly breathed in lint, dust, and toxic fumes. 2. Heavy machines lacked safety devices and people were maimed or killed while performing their jobs.
3. Working hours in the factories could be long. Workers normally worked about 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. a. There was no such thing as paid breaks, overtime, paid vacations or sick days. 4. In 1900 the average industrial worker made 22 an hour and worked 59 hours a week.
D. Conditions would improve when Labor Unions became more common --What is a union? Why would you form one? 1. Collective Bargaining allows a group of individuals to work together to gain concessions from their employer. 2. Individuals do not have the same power as groups when it comes to bargaining and working for better conditions.
3. Labor organizations a. Knights of Labor (1869). Sought to create one big union of all workers, skilled and unskilled. Opposed to strikes. b. American Federation of Labor (1886). Organized by Samuel Gompers. Focused on higher wages, shorter hours, and safer working conditions.
c. Eugene Debs and American Railway Union (1892). Socialist approach that viewed government and owners as enemies of workers. Eugene Debs, Union organizer 4. Labor strife arose in the 1870s with frequent strikes a. Haymarket Massacre, Chicago (led by the K of L), 1886 occurred when a bomb killed 7 and wounded 70
b. Homestead Strike in Pennsylvania, 1892 resulted in seven deaths
c. Pullman Strike (led by the ARU), 1894 in Chicago temporarily stopped railroad traffic and required federal intervention
E. Worker s rights were a big issue in Europe also. 1. In Germany Karl Marx proposed a system that would remove the inequalities of wealth. a. His theory, Marxism, said that a new, equal, society could be formed through a communal style of labor and economy: Communism.
V. New Issues for Labor A. As machines and new procedures (including assembly line) reduced demand for labor, employers cut costs further by hiring large numbers of women and children 1. By 1900, 20% of all manufacturing workers were women (up from 11% in 1870). 2. By 1900, 13% of all textile workers were younger than 16.
B. Working conditions resulted in 25,000 deaths in industrial accidents per year 1. Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (NYC) in 1913 resulted in 146 deaths. 2. 72,000 railroad workers killed between 1900 and 1917.
C. Court cases try to change conditions 1. In Lochner v. New York (1905), Supreme Court ruled that 60-hour work week limit was unconstitutional. 2. In Muller v. Oregon (1908), Court reversed Lochner and limited women's working hours to 10 per day.
D. Government Regulation 1. The government was controlled by businessmen and made few attempts to reform business until the 1880s. 2. The Interstate Commerce Commission, ICC, was formed to regulate the railroads, one of the most corrupt businesses. a. This was an important first step, even though it changed little at the time.
3. The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed officially outlawing monopolies and trusts that limited business. a. This was seldom enforced until after 1900, but it began a trend toward federal limitations on corporation s power. 4. Real labor reform won t happen until the 1930 when federal standards are set for the workplace.
VI. Immigrants and Americans on the Move A. As steam replaced waterpower for mills, industries concentrated geographically (ironmakers in Pittsburgh, meat-packing in Chicago, Haverhill, Massachusetts in shoes, etc.) B. Large-scale production instantly created small cities of workers--company towns dominated by one industry.
C. Gateways for immigrants (New York, Boston, San Francisco) provided abundant cheap labor. D. Between 1800-1880, 10 million immigrants came to America from northwestern Europe. 1. Mostly Protestant they merged well with the predominantly English population.
E. Between 1891-1910, 12 million immigrants came to America. Most were from southern or eastern Europe.
1. Many of these new immigrants were Catholic, Greek Orthodox or Jewish, this would cause conflict with the predominantly Protestant native Americans.
2. America was the land of economic prosperity. Some workers came to make money and return home, many came to make new lives.
3. Immigrants who arrived in New York went through Ellis Island, where they were required to have a physical exam.
4. New immigrants had resources to help them acclimate to life in America. a. Church communities helped them maintain their sense of identity and culture. b. Benevolent Societies were aid societies to help immigrants who became ill, had legal problems, or ran into any problems.
F. Many native-born American saw immigration as a threat. They blamed immigrants for many of society s problems and felt they would never fit in.
1. Chinese exclusion became a policy in the West. Chinese workers were not allowed to work in some jobs.
a. Some communities actually forced the Chinese to move and burned their homes and belongings to keep them from returning.
b. In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act which denied citizenship to anyone born in China and stopping all future immigration.
VII. Problems of the City A. Mass transit 1. Until 1890, the horsecar (using railroad tracks) accounted for 70% of city traffic. Limitations: a. They were slow and had limited pulling power b. Left piles of manure
Boston had the first subway system in 1897. Park Street Station, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, circa 1898.
2. Cable cars (first used in San Francisco in 1873) and electric trolley cars (Richmond, 1887) with overhead power lines replaced horses in many cities
B. Overcrowding in tenements and lack of housing 1. By 1890, more than 2/3 of New York's 1.5 million residents lived in overcrowded tenements. The Lower East Side was one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
C. Poor sanitation, inadequate water supplies
D. The skyscraper solved one of the problems. The introduction of steel girders, durable place glass and the passenger elevator available after 1880 opened the skies for construction.
1. The first skyscraper was 1885's Home Insurance Building in Chicago. It was 10 stories tall. By 1913 New York's Woolworth Building rose 55 stories.
VIII. Urban Living A. As a result of technology cities grew higher and larger. (skyscrapers and mass transit) B. Middle-class workers moved to cities for white collar jobs.
E. The new cities were built upon utilitarian lines and the emphasis was on function over form. 1. American cities were built by individual entrepreneurs and not masterminded by urban planners. 2. They were the most technologically advanced cities in the world when it came to sewage, sanitation, bridges and transportation but the air quality and filth in the streets was horrible.
IX. Corruption in the City A. Police forces (separate from the military and controlled by local officials) established to maintain law and order 1. Poorly defined duties 2. Ineffective in controlling theft, prostitution, gambling
3. Symbiotic relationships developed between police and institutions, such as saloons, they were supposed to oversee. 4. Reform came slowly, as independent police commissions were established to control bribery and graft.
B. Political bosses emerged, controlling city machines 1. Ward captains turned out voters on Election Day 2. Jobs handed out as political favors, as were tax breaks and licenses
3. While some machines provided welfare services, opportunities for corruption were great a. Boss Tweed in New York's Tammany Hall controlled 60,000 jobs. He was arrested, bribed his way out of jail, escaped, was recaught and finally died in jail.
b. Big Jim Pendergast held absolute power in Kansas City, controlling gambling and liquor licenses
X. Battling the City's Problems A. Reformers sought to counter poverty and other urban problems by focusing on moral uplift 1. YMCAs and YWCAs formed to provide housing and recreation opportunities
2. Salvation Army was effective in providing emergency aid, housing, street kitchens 3. Comstock laws sought to close down gambling, pornography, prostitution, contraceptives and Sunday liquor sales.
B. Social Gospel sought to apply teachings of Jesus' to the problems of urban society. Blame for problems did not rest with the poor, but with society. 1. Washington Gladden--true Christianity requires churchgoers to fight social injustice.
2. Walter Rauschenbusch--Christianity and the Social Crisis. Churches should unite to reform the abuses of industry and fight for peace.
C. Settlement Houses--founded by Jane Addams to offer literacy classes, crafts classes, job training, and a sense of dignity to urban dwellers, particularly immigrants
D. Orphan trains- New York City reformers shipped orphans from the city out to rural areas of the West, hoping to find them a better place to live.
E. City planning became important after the fires and destruction in cities like Chicago, San Francisco and Galveston.
XI. The Stratification of Society A. America had three distinct classes, the wealthy, the middle-class and the poor and their living conditions differed greatly. 1. The wealthy had profited from industrialization and made huge fortunes.
a. They used their money to build enormous homes and live lavishly. They had country retreats but many built mansions in the city too.
2. The middle class was moving to the suburbs and was enjoying a higher standard of living. a. Mass-produced household devices had a huge impact and gave women more time for outside activities.
Can you see the widening gap between the rich and poor?
3. The urban poor did significantly worse than other classes of people. Many of the poor were newer immigrants who were living in the cities and working in factories. 4. The rural homes of farmers and ranchers were improved with the introduction of new technology, but electricity would be longer in reaching many of these areas.