Good Morning!!1. NVC

2. HOT ROC: The “Gilded” Age

3. The Gilded Age: Rise of Big Business

Essential Question: Was America’s growth in wealth during the Gilded Age good for all Americans?

HOT ROC: “Gilded”

• The word “Gilded” means “covered thinly with gold or gold paint.” Knowing what you know about this time, why do you think historians chose to call this period of industrialization the “Gilded Age”?

The Gilded Age: Rise of Big Business

• Monopoly: One company controls an entire industry. Oil and steel industries were both controlled by monopolies at the beginning of industrialization.

• Trust: a set of companies managed by a small group known as trustees, who can prevent companies in the trust from competing with each other.

• Corporation: Google, Netflix, Apple. Any company that sells stocks.

Creating Big Business

• Horizontal and Vertical Integration

Andrew Carnegie$75 Billion

• Andrew Carnegie came from Scotland with his parents in 1848.

• In 1861, at the age of 26, he started up the Freedom Iron Company, and used the new Bessemer process for making steel

• He formed all of his companies into the Carnegie Steel Company in 1899, which controlled raw materials, manufacturing, storage, and distribution for steel.– Vertical Integration

John D. Rockefeller$192 Billion

• Born in 1839• His working life started as a

bookkeeper • He established one of the first oil

refineries• 1870—With partners, forms a

business trust: Standard Oil• At its peak, controls 90% of all oil

companies– Horizontal Integration

Leland Stanford$37 Billion

• Born in New York in 1824• Came to California with

brothers in 1852 during the Gold Rush

• Railroad Tycoon and founder of Central Pacific Railroad in 1861

• Used his status to get elected Governor of CA in 1862– Combines with Southern Pacific

Railroad to form a Trust in 1868– Has a monopoly on

transportation on West Coast

The Gilded Age…1870s-1900• Where was the most money made?

– Top 2% owned 1/3 of all wealth– Top 10% owned 3/4 of all wealth

• Was this positive or negative for America?

1870 1900

Steel Production

77,000 tons

11 million tons

Oil production 5 million barrels

63 million barrels

Railroad track 53,000 miles

200,000 miles

What would Stanford say…

• Monopolies are good because we can produce goods at a lower cost to consumers!

• Now everyone can ride the train for cheap!

• We use our wealth to benefit others through our charitable donations (philanthropy)– I BUILT STANFORD UNIVERSITY!

• We are captains of industry!

What would the Populists (Berkeley folk) say?

• Monopolies are bad because they control the whole industry and set the prices.

• Small businesses have to pay high prices to ship our crops on their trains!

• And these companies pay low wages to their workers!

• They are robber barons!

Big Business and the Government: A problem to this day…

Leave Business Alone• Laissez-faire• Social Darwinism

Limit Business

• Sherman Anti-Trust Act– 1911--Splits Rockefeller’s

Standard Oil into 34 companies

– (A U.S. Court of Appeals found in 2001 that Microsoft violated the Sherman antitrust act.)

Do we have robber barons today?