Industrialization, Immigration, Urbanization

Outline

• The “Gilded Age”

• Corporate Structures

• Businesses and Technology

• Social Darwinism & Laissez Faire

• Labor and urbanization

• Immigration and “National Culture”

“The Gilded Age”

• Cheap plastic painted gold

• Anti-competition & monopoly

• No government “Laissez Faire”

• Anti-union “Strikes vs. Lockouts”

• No liability, regulation– Corruption!!

Industry & Mechanization

• Rise of Factories• Mass production

– Bessemer Process

• Low wages– Exploitation of women,

children, immigrants

• De-skilled labor– Work anyone could do

• Technology– Innovations, Inventions

Corporations

• Monopolies – What are they?– Control supply of a particular product– Set prices (supply and demand)– Laissez Faire industrialization

Corporations

• High fixed costs – Expensive to build and maintain factory

• Low operating cost– Wages

• This enabled corporations to stay open during slow economic times!

• Produce more goods at lower costs

• Very efficient! Invest in machinery, etc.

The Railroad

• Vanderbilt’s industry– Government gave land grants

• Encourage rapid construction• RR’s allowed to sell land to raise $$ for

construction• Leads to scandals!!

– Credit Mobilier• Company set up by Union Pacific• overcharged itself for construction• Paid members of Congress for more land

grants!

Standard Oil

• Rockefeller– Discovered that refining oil was more

profitable than finding it– Used HORIZONTAL integration to create a

Monopoly• By 1880’s, he owned 90% of all oil refineries in

U.S.• Made $1.5 Billion by any means necessary

Standard Oil, 1906

Carnegie’s US Steel

•Andrew Carnegie: Andrew Carnegie: U.S. Steel (1870s)U.S. Steel (1870s)•VERTICAL VERTICAL integrationintegration

•Bought all of the mines, quarries, Shipping companies, mills

•Created a monopoly

Laissez Faire

• “Free markets” = no government intervention

• Prices set based on Consumer demand• Competition creates innovation and

keeps prices low• Monopolies eliminated competition to

keep prices high sometimes, low other times

Laissez Faire

• No government regulation except to protect property rights and maintain peace.

• Let Supply and Demand regulate prices– If monopolies control supply, then they can fix

prices, right?

Social Darwinism

• Herbert Spencer• Distorted Charles

Darwin’s “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest”

• Social & economic system was natural

• Poor were naturally poor, rich were naturally rich

• No gov’t intervention (Laissez Faire!)

Problems with Philosophy

• Tariffs (high taxes on imported goods)

• Railroad Land Grants (Who’s controlling the grants)

• Laws written for & by rich elite men (bribery scandals galore)

• Force used to benefit corporations

• No competition– It’s not my fault I’m a billionaire, I’m just the

strongest to survive the game

Survival of the fittest

So don’t tell me how much I can pay my Employees, don’t tell me how much I shouldSell my product for, and don’t tell me that I can’t eliminate the competition! I am the WINNER!!!

Technological Innovations

• Alexander Graham Bell, 1876

• Thomas A. Edison (phonograph) 1877– Electric light bulb 1879

• Pressure sealed tin cans

• Bessemer Process, steel

• Replace workers with technology

Thomas Edison & Alexander BellLight bulb Telephone

Edison & Phonograph, 1870s

Immigration, 1880-1920

• Italians, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Slavic, Jewish, Russian, Mexican, Chinese

• Labor Compartmentalization

• Polish = Steel• Russian Jews = Street

Vendors

Faces of America

Urbanization• Growth of industries concentrated

people & power in cities

• Industrialization pulled people off the land

• Technological advances: elevators, sewage, piped water, electricity, subways, electric streetcar (1888), refrigeration increased urbanization

Cities and Populations

• New York (40%)

• Chicago (42%)

• San Fran (45%)

• El Paso (31%)

• Foreign Born

City Life

• Fast Growth• Few social services

or regulations• Tenement buildings• Settlement Houses• Multicultural &

ethnically organized

Immigration and National Culture

• 1870-1910, 20 million immigrants

• Southern & eastern Europe

• Culture, language, religion, ethnicity

• Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans

• Chain Migration

• Assimilation stripped people of their cultures, attacked diversity, and tried to make them into WASPs

Immigrant Life

• Ethnic enclaves– Immigrants felt more comfortable in their

own “towns”• Little Italy, Chinatown, etc.

• Employment – Industrialists exploit them– Pay them much less than American’s

Urban Life

• Tenements– Low income housing– Creation of lower classes– Living conditions were just as bad as working

conditions– Several families living in small tenements– Couldn’t afford rent on wages– Terrible situation

Chinese Immigration

• 1870: 63,000 Chinese, most in CAL

• 22% in Idaho

• 1930: 470,000 in U.S

• 90% in West

• Railroads, mining, service sector of cities

Working Conditions

• Terrible– Dangerous, unhealthy environments– Workers breathed in lint,

dust, toxic fumes– Dull, repetitive tasks

(led to inattentiveness and injuries)

– Dangerous machines with no safety regulations

Unions

• Organized workers in a particular craft to ensure better working conditions– Pipefitters, Electricians, steel workers, etc.

• Organized strikes for better wages– Strikes usually met with violence– Owners would “lock out” workers, hire new

ones

Unions

• Immigrants were flooding the U.S.– Many joining unions– Marxists and anarchists– Unions associated with “radical European

ideas”

Strikes

• Railroad Strike 1873– Workers wanted more pay, troops sent in, 12 days

later, 100 people dead

• Haymarket riot– Workers wanted 8 hour days, troops called in, bomb

goes off, 170 injured 10 police dead

• Pullman Strike– Employees had to live in Pullman apartments, shop

only at Pullman stores. Wages cut, employees strike, troops called in, boycott halted, gave industrialists advantage.

Nativism

• Anti-immigrant fears – Because of these strikes – Because of massive amounts of

immigrants– 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act

• Violence towards immigrants– They’re just trying to survive, right?

Conclusions

• Good & Bad impact of technology

• Rise of National Corporations

• New Business Structures

• Social Darwinism

• Immigration and Urbanization

• Racism and immigration policy