The Growing U.S. in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s

Industrial Revolution & the Gilded Age

Industrial Advantages of the U.S.

1. Growing labor supply (immigrants & children)

2. An abundance of natural resources (iron, oil, electricity)

3. Free enterprise – business that is free from govt. involvement

2nd Industrial Revolution

� Laissez-faire capitalism – little govt. regulation of the economy

� Entrepreneurs – people who organize their own business

� Labor was mostly immigrants (paid cheap) or poor children

� Because of this, the U.S. became the industrial leader in the world during the 1890’s

Monopolies

� Total control of a business or product (just like the game)� consolidating corporations to control the market for a product

� attempting to destroy the competition

� controlling the majority of the production & distribution of a product

� robber barons – polarization of wealth; businessman who dominated their respective industries

� Andrew Carnegie – STEEL

� John D. Rockefeller – OIL

� Sherman Antitrust Act – outlawed monopolies. But it was difficult to enforce

Andrew Carnegie John D. Rockefeller

Economic Ideologies

� *Capitalism – private business own & operate most industries; competition determines cost of goods as well as workers’ pay

� Government favored business in most disputes with its labor force

� Social Darwinism – societies evolve over time by adapting to their environment; govt. regulation threatened the natural economic order (survival of the fittest)

Growth of Cities

� Increase in immigrants

� Port of entry = Ellis Island, NY & Angel Island, CA

� Most were Roman Catholic

� Led to racial & ethnic problems (ex. Wops, Pollocks)

� Movement from rural to urban life (more people living in the city)

� Jobs available in the cities

� Led to overcrowding & lack of city services – sanitation problems

Immigrants at Ellis Island

Settlement Houses

� Neighborhood centers in poor areas staffed by professionals and volunteers who offered education, recreation, and social activities

� Jane Addams – founded the most famous settlement house, called Hull House in Chicago.

� Hull House focused on the needs of families and immigrants. Teaching citizenship and English.

Hull House

Jane Addams - activist

Discrimination & Civil Rights

� Chinese Exclusion Act

� U.S. fed. law restricting Chinese for 10 years & any Chinese American could not obtain U.S. citizenship; reaction to open immigration

� Plessy vs. Ferguson

� Plessy (1/18th black) was thrown off railway car & arrested for violating Separate Car Act of Louisiana

� U.S. Supreme Court case upholding racial segregation; “separate but equal”

� practiced until 1954

Fighting for Civil Rights

� Booker T. Washington� 1st Civil Rights leader (original MLK); author� believed in cooperation w/ whites instead of confrontation� his work greatly helped lay the foundation for the 1960’s

Civil Rights Movement � W.E.B. DuBois

� publisher & author of equality writings; encouraged Harlem Renaissance; director of NAACP

� “blacks should challenge and question whites, seek higher education, & assimilate into American culture”; they should know when to act “white” and/or “black”

� Marcus Garvey� founder of Universal Negro Improvement Association

(uniting all of Africa)� Africans redeem Africa from European foreigners & return

home

The New Workplace

� Machines replaced skilled workers

� mass production – large amounts of products being made

� Immigrants taking jobs

� Labor Unions grew � They increase workers’ power (power in numbers)

� Used as a bargaining tool against employer to get what workers want (collective bargaining)

� Taft-Hartley Act – fed. law passed that monitors activities & powers of labor unions

Labor Unions

•American Federation ofLabor –they

IndividualizedUnions

(ex. Mineworkers,Steelworkers); open

to only skilled workers

� Knights of Labor

- Open to

everyone – men, women, skilled & unskilled workers;

one big union

Labor Union Rallies & Strikes

� The Bisbee Deportation – in AZ; the Industrial Workers of the World demanded change in the copper mines, the Bisbee mining corp. refused; violence erupted – 2 men were killed, others beaten - the IWW members were deported to NM; the Bisbee company was never found guilty for their injustice

� The Haymarket Riot – 1000s of union members in Chicago went on strike; 2 strikers were killed by police; workers protested; turned violent – 8 officers killed; officers killed several people; another example of unfair labor laws

Labor Dispute & Strikes

� Homestead Strike

� Pennsylvania (1892); between Amalgamated Assoc. of Iron & Steel Workers (AA) – the whole town & Carnegie Steel Co.

� AA wanted to prevent management from forcing workers to agree not to become a member of a union… got violent

� Union VICTORY!!!

� Pullman Strike

� nationwide conflict between unions & RRs (1894); violence erupted in Illinois with Pullman Palace Car Company & American Railway Union

� President Cleveland ordered fed. troops to Chicago to end strike (he was not reelected); RRs won!

Populist Party (The People’s Party)

� Supported free coinage of silver, labor reform, immigration restrictions, & govt. ownership of RR & the telegraph/telephone system

� Most populists were farmers and industrial workers (the common people) that were losing jobs and $$$ to immigrants & big business

� William Jennings Bryan – a democrat & populist presidential candidate in 1896. He lost. This election marked the end of the populist movement.

Progressive Reforms

� all laws were designed to give the people greater control over their state legislatures & state officials

� Amendments:� 16th – income tax� 17th – direct election of senators� 18th – prohibition� 19th – women’s right to vote

� Election reforms:� Recall – if enough voters sign a petition, the people can

remove the official� Initiative – voters’ ability to propose new laws by petition� Referendum – voters approve or disapprove laws already

being practiced

Corruption

� Machine Bosses bought voter support with jobs & favors� reached out to immigrants by finding jobs attaining

citizenship, housing, etc. � in return, expected their vote

� used illegal tactics to maintain control (bought votes)

� demanded bribes & pay offs for jobs

� Tammany Hall, a.k.a Tweed Ring� most notorious political machine� stole millions of tax dollars

� Spoils System

muckrakers

� Progressivism – reformers who wanted to address city life & corruption in order to achieve order & stability

� Journalists who practiced progressivism named, “muckrakers” – bc they raked up the muck of society & exposed corrution & illegal business practices

� Ida Tarbell – wrote about unfair business practices of the Standard Oil Co.; book: History of Standard Oil Company

� Jacob Riis – wrote about slum life & business corruption; book: How the Other Half Lives

� Upton Sinclair – wrote about unsanitary working conditions; book: The Jungle

� Frank Norris – discussed how railroads were a monopoly

� Lincoln Steffens – exposed corruption in city govt.

Theodore Roosevelt –Progressive President

� “Trustbuster” – broke up trusts (a group of companies under a single board of director that make a lot of $$$, there’s no competition)

� Land conservation –doubled the number of national and state parks