THE GILDED AGE IN AMERICAN HISTORYIndustrialization, Immigration, and the expansion of Capitalism

Explosion of Industry

Edwin Drake successfully used a steam engine to extract oil. This began an oil boom.

Bessemer Process:. Bessemer developed a process to make a flexible rust proof metal—Steel.

Mesabi Range: huge iron discovery in the Mesabi Range of Minnesota

Three significant events spur Industry

Gilded Age West—Frontier, Populism, and Native American Removal

Gilded Age East—Worker abuse, Robber Barons, and Financial turmoil.

Two Manifestations?

Replacing muscle with steam and electricit Steel processed at 3-5 tons per day (increase of

15x from 1860) Today 5 tons takes 15 minutes! Steel: 1880-1,000,000 tons Steel: 1900-25,000,000 tons

1900 there was 193,000 miles of rail…up from 30,000 in 1860.

Farming—it took 61 hours to cultivate an acre of wheat…in 1900 it took 3 hours!

Mining—in 1860 14,000,000 tons were mind. By 1884 that number was now 100,000,000 tons with ½ the workforce.

Dealing with Labor

New York 1860: 800,000 1900: 4,000,000

Chicago: 1860: 110,000 1900: 2,000,000

Gilded Age Cities

Thomas Edison—what didn’t he invent? Electrical devices, communication devices, and light.

Gustavus Swift: ice cooled railway car to transport food

James Duke: Cigarette rolling machine…1,000 cigarettes versus 100,000. Duke University

Key Inventions

Edison promised every legislator $1,000 gift for favorable legislation.

Jay Gould spent $1,000,000 in 1 year bribing the Congress.

Central Pacific (Gould) spent $200,000 bribing Congress for rights to 9,000,000 acres of free land.

Gould charged Congress $79,000,000 to build a railroad that cost $24,000,000.

Graft!

Crooked politics

JP Morgan…an auspices beginning. Rifle story.

Loans to fuel industry were vital. Stock sales becoming vital. 1895: US ran out of gold to back

currency. JP Morgan lent them the gold in exchange for bonds that they immediately resold for a 50% profit!

Finance

Businesses sought to crush one another. Rockefeller and Carnegie—Monopoly

Politics Rockefeller eventually created a

$2,000,000,000 empire valued at nearly 100 times that figure in today’s currency.

Morgan bought US Steel for $492,000,000 from Carnegie and created a global monopoly on steel.

Competition

Innovation: The Brooklyn Bridge

Barnum proves the safety of this 8th wonder!

Inventions promote change: Edison

Thomas A. Edison—remarkable statistics about his invention prowess!

Incandescent Light

Production and distribution of electricity

Edison Inventions

Inventions change lifestyles

Christopher Sholes invented the typewriter in 1867

A. G. Bell invented the teleophone in 1876

These two innovations changed the way business had done and the role of women in the workplace.

The Age of the Railroads

Transcontinental Railroad opened: May 10, 1869

The Golden Spike: Promontory Point Utah

Railroad Innovations

In order to standardized travel and make it more convenient and efficient. The rail industry pushed the new innovation of using time zones to standardize travel.

Time Zones

Multiplier Industry

Railroads promoted other industries: Mining Steel Coal Car and line construction

Growth of Towns

Rail needs towns to sponsor lines and preserve order and stability along the route.

Industry and packaging became boom industries along the rail.

Growth of Chicago

Pullman, Illinois.

The people in the town built a factory for building sleeping cars.

Pullman provided all of the basic needs.

Prices were high rules were strict.

.

Violent Strike of 1894

Pullman Strike of 1894

Regulating Railroads

A major goal of Populist Age

Farmers angry with abusive land grants, inconsistent rates, and high discounts for large shippers (none for small farmers)

Saw victory in the case of Munn (and Wabash) v. Illinois

Interstate Commerce Act of 1887-reinforced the power of the Federal Government to regulate interstate commerce.

Panic of 1893

Railroad co. financial problems—collapse of Reading Railroad.

Currency problems

Credit shortage (2007-????)

15,000 businesses closed

600 banks 74 railroads Est. 20%

unemployment-4,000,000 lost jobs

Causes Outcomes

Panic of 1893

Rise of Big Business and Labor No one defined the

age like Andrew Carnegie

One of the first “titans” of Industry (Robber Barons) to build an empire of wealth.

True “Rags to Riches” story

Steel magnate

The Gospel of Wealth

Carnegie and Rockefeller both created endowments that gave away nearly 1 billion dollars (at that time).

“Wealth is like a stinking fish” Carnegie

Most of their money went to things to better humanity such as universities and libraries.

Vertical and Horizontal Integration

Social Darwinism

Philosophy of Herbert Spencer

Built on books by Horatio Alger

Social Darwinism

Riches were a “sign of God’s favor, and therefore the poor must be inferior or lazy people who deserved their lot in life” (text-449)

John D. Rockefeller

Led to creation of trusts…competing companies who joined together in trust agreements run by a board of trustees as one large corporation.

Rockefeller’s Standard Oil-controlled 90% of oil refinery in the US.

Charitable acts from this “robber baron”

Regulating Business

Sherman Anti Trust Act

Made it illegal to form trusts

Prosecution very difficult.

Courts dismissed most attempts.

Emergence of Labor Unions

As business leaders consolidated and united, labor began to do the same.

Labor faced severe hardships: Long work days Dangerous conditions No benefits Risk of injury and

death Role of women and

children

Strategy Plight of Labor

Two types of Unions

This group had more bargaining power.

Craft unions such as the AFL

Had less bargaining power.

Example: The Knights of Labor

Skilled Unskilled

Results?

Work week shrank and the pay increased between 1890 and 1915

Socialism and the labor movement Big Bill Hawyood

and the IWW. “Wobblies” based

their ideas off of those of Karl Marx.

Strikes and Violence

Purpose of a strike?

Examples of significant strikes.

Great Strike of 1877

Haymarket Affair Homestead Strike

Great Strike of 1877

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began on July 17, 1877, in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Workers for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad went on strike, because the company had reduced workers' wages twice over the previous year. The strikers refused to let the trains run until the most recent pay cut was returned to the employees.

Haymarket Affair

300,000 gathered to protest police brutality.

A striker had been killed the day before.

Someone tossed a bomb into the police line

Haymarket Affair

Homestead Strike

Plan to cut wages once again and hire “Pinkerton’s” to allow the ownership to hire “scabs”.

National Guard had to be called in after workers took over the plant.

Workers lost influence after this strike.

Homestead Strike

Political Machines of the Gilded Age

“There is no denying that the government of cities is one conspicuous failure of the United States”.

“The worst government in Christendom—the most expensive, the most inefficient, and the most corrupt”.

Why so inept?

Explosion of population Deluge of problems New York’s population doubled five times

in less than a generation given the millions of immigrants that flooded her borders.

Political Machines

An organized group that controlled the activities of a political party in a city, the political machine also offered services to voters and businesses in exchange for political or financial support. In the decades after the Civil War, political machines gained control of local government in Baltimore, New York, San Francisco, and other major cities

Organization

The machine was organized like a pyramid. At the pyramid's base were local precinct workers and captains, who tried to gain voters' support on a city block or in a neighborhood and who reported to a ward boss.

At election time, the ward boss worked to secure the vote in all the precincts in the ward, or electoral district. Ward bosses helped the poor and gained their votes by doing favors or providing services.

As Martin Lomasney, elected ward boss of Boston's West End in 1885, explained, “There's got to be in every ward somebody that any bloke can come to . . . and get help. Help, you understand; none of your law and your justice, but help.”

Help: George W. Plunkitt style “If there's a fire in Ninth, Tenth, or Eleventh

Avenue, for example, any hour of the day or night. I’m usually there…as soon as the fire engines. If a family is burned out, I don’t ask them whther they are Republicans or Democrats, and I don’t refer to the Charity Organization Society, which would investigate their case in a month or two and decide they couldn’t help them. I just get quarters for them to buy clothes and fix them up until things are runnin’ again.”

Result? VOTES

More Plunkitt

“It’s philanthropy but its politics, too, mighty good politics…the poor are the most grateful people in the world, and let me tell you, they have more friends in their neighborhoods than the rich have in theirs…”

“Another thing, I can always get a job for a deservin’ man. I make it a point to keep on the track of jobs, and it seldom happens that I don’t have one up my sleeve ready for use.”

George Washington Plunkitt , Precinct Captain, Tammany Hall

Getting Votes

“I hear of a young feller that’s proud of his voice…I ask him to come around…and join our Glee Club. He comes and sings, and he’s a Plunkitt follower for life. Another young fellar gains a reputation as a base-ball player. I bring him into our baseball club. That fixes him, you’ll find him workin for my ticket at the polls the next election day…I rope them in by givin them opportunities to show themselves off. I don’t trouble them with Politics” Plunkitt

The Boss

THE ROLE OF THE POLITICAL BOSS   Whether or not the boss officially served as mayor, he controlled access to municipal jobs and business licenses, and influenced the courts and other municipal agencies.

Bosses like Roscoe Conkling in New York used their power to build parks, sewer systems, and waterworks, and gave money to schools, hospitals, and orphanages.

Using Immigrants

IMMIGRANTS AND THE MACHINE   Many precinct captains and political bosses were first-generation or second-generation immigrants.

Immigrants

The machines helped immigrants with naturalization (attaining full citizenship), housing, and jobs–the newcomers' most pressing needs. In return, the immigrants provided what the political bosses needed–votes.

Graft

NYC Courthouse example Cost $13,000,000—in reality it was a

$3,000,000 project. Examples? Graft:

Combating Machines

Became the quest of Newspapers They attacked with little success in

editorials. What got them were the cartoons “I don’t care what people write, for my

people can’t read. But they have eyes and can see as well as other folk.” Boss Tweed.

The Cartoons of Thomas Nast

Exposing Gilded Age Scandal To A Unique Audience.

Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed

• Political Machines Dominate Local Government…

• Certain Services are met and improve, but corruption is the order of the day.

Nast slowly erodes Tammany’s influence

A picture is worth 1000 words!

Who Stole the People’s Money?

Not Grrrrrrreat

In the political ring

Other creations…

• Symbols for modern republican and democratic parties.

• Uncle Sam, oh and…

Nast slowly erodes Tammany’s influence

A picture is worth 1000 words!

Who Stole the People’s Money?

Not Grrrrrrreat

In the political ring

Other creations…

• Symbols for modern republican and democratic parties.

• Uncle Sam, oh and…

Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed

• Political Machines Dominate Local Government…

• Certain Services are met and improve, but corruption is the order of the day.