THE INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

Chapter 18

Industrial Development1865-1914

• Late nineteenth-century U.S. offers ideal conditions for rapid industrial growth – Abundance of cheap natural resources– Large pools of labor– Largest free trade market in the world– Capital, government support without regulation

providing incentive for growth

Railroads• Railroads capture the imagination of the American people

– Becomes safe, fast, and reliable – End rural isolation– Regional economic specialization– Make mass production, consumption possible

• 1865–1916-U.S. lays over 200,000 miles of track through federal land grants/incentives (leads to corruption)

• 1862-1869-Congress authorizes the transcontinental railroad (Union Pacific vs. Central Pacific)– Tracks meet in Utah, Promontory Point

• Bankers gain control after Panic of 1893 and impose order by consolidating power and eliminating competition

Creation of Time Zones

Industrialists

Captains of Industry• a business leader whose

means of amassing a personal fortune contributes positively to the country

Robber Barons • a business leader whose

means of amassing a personal fortune contributes negatively to the country

The Business of Invention• Late nineteenth-century

industry leads to new American technology

• An Age of Invention– Telegraph, camera,

processed foods, telephone, phonograph, incandescent lamp

• Electricity in growing use by 1900

• Bessemer Process (refining steel) leads to mass production

Carnegie and Steel

• Made his wealth in large-scale steel production (U.S. Steel)

• By 1901, Carnegie employs 20,000 and produces more steel than Great Britain

• Requirements lead to “vertical integration”– Definition: A type of organization

in which a single company owns and controls the entire process from obtaining raw materials to manufacture and sale of the finished product

Rockefeller and Oil

• John D. Rockefeller organizes Standard Oil Company of Ohio/creating the first known trust

• Rockefeller lowers costs, improves quality, establishes efficient marketing operation

• Requirements lead to “horizontal integration”– Definition: A type of organization

in which a single company buys out, or merges, it competitors controlling all its competition

The System

The Sellers• Marketing becomes a

science in late 1800s• Advertising becomes

common• Americans become a

community of consumers– Montgomery Ward– Sears-Roebuck – Marshal Fields

The Wage Earners • The labor of millions of men

and women built the new industrial society

• 1875–1900 real wages rose, working conditions improved, and workers’ national influence increased

Working Men, Working Women, Working Children

• Chronically low wages– Average wages: $400-500 per year– Salary required for decent living: $600 per year

• Dangerous working conditions– High death rate, high injury rate and chronic

illness

• Composition of the labor force by 1900– 20% women – 10% girls and 20% boys under the age of 14– Women and children are poorly paid

Racism in the Workplace

• Discriminatory wage structure and practice – Whites earn more than blacks or Asians– Protestants earn more than Catholics or Jews– Black workers earn less at every level and skill– Federal Chinese Exclusion Act prohibits Chinese

immigration for 10 years

The Jungle

Labor Unions

• Knights of Labor (1869)-combine all workers skilled and unskilled• A.F.L. (1886)-seeks practical improvements for wages, working

conditions– Samuel Gompers – Focus on skilled workers– Ignores women and African Americans

• Courts come down on side of owners with injunctions against strikes– 1880–1900: 23,000 strikes– Chicago Haymarket incident prompts fears of anarchist

uprising– Homestead steel strike

Industrialization’sBenefits and Costs

Benefits• Rapid industrialization

– Rise in national power and wealth

– Improving standard of living

Costs• Human cost of

industrialization– Exploitation– Social unrest– Growing disparity between

rich and poor– Increasing power of giant

corporations