Period 6

• Bessemer steel is lighter and stronger
• Bessemer Steel allows the building of railroads, buildings, and suspension bridges
• Carnegie discovers a way to mass produce Bessemer Steel. (Carnegie Steel)
• Carnegie Steel was based in Pittsburgh, PA (the Steelers)
• Carnegie underpays his employees, dislikes Unions, and had strikes against his business that led to the deaths of some of his employees
• Vertical Integration (Carnegie): Instead of buying supplies from other companies, a business owns all the plants/mills needed to make their product. Own all your suppliers.
• Carnegie was already rich from steel when he started vertical integration, but vertical integration exponentially increased his wealth
• Carnegie Steel buys out another steel company and changes the company name to US Steel
• Before oil was taken from the ground it was taken from whale blubber.
• Getting oil from whales was difficult and there was a lack of whales
• Cars were created by Karl Benz
• When electricity was invented oil was no longer needed. However, once cars were invented the need for oil came back.
• Edwin Drake discovers that oil can be taken from the ground
• John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil Co.) processes oil after it was collected and before it could be used
• Horizontal Integration (Rockefeller): Buy similar smaller businesses to prevent competition
• Rockefeller would use Trust Accounts to buy business illegally and bypass government regulations. He would put money in a Trust Fund to be "invested" but the money would be used to buy a company or buy shares in a company.
• US tries to make laws to regulate "Bad Trusts:" Trusts that hurt consumers.
• Sherman Antitrust Act: 1890, outlaws trusts that hurt the economy (or the consumer). Outlaws monopolies.
• Ida Tarbell: Her father owned a business that Rockefeller got from horizontal integration. Tarbell, a journalist, investigates Rockefeller (and Standard Oil Co.) to try and prove that he was violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. Tarbell goes on a "date" with a worker from Standard Oil and persuades him to give her dirt on the company. She publishes a series of exposés exposing Standard Oil for their shady business practices.
• Due to Tarbell, US Government files a Sherman Antitrust Act violation against Standard Oil Co. which forces Rockefeller to sell half of his company.
• The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie claims that God gave the wealthy their riches and because of that wealthy people have the responsibility to give away their money to the community. Justifies wealth and benefits consumers.
• The Trust Buster: Theodore Roosevelt, committed to breaking up monopolies and protecting the consumer
• Social Darwinism (Herbert Spencer): Survival of the fittest in business. The wealthy are rich because they are the "best" and "fittest." Claims intervention in this system is immoral and goes against nature.
• Everyone's standard of living increases. US has one of the highest standards of living in the world (ATT)
• Pulls: more job opportunities
• Immigrants come from the East and West Coast. Settle in coastal states and some people are moving to the Midwest.
• Inventions lead to more job opportunities for women: office jobs (typewriter), telephone operators (telephone)
• A growing middle class, people who work wage jobs and have a decent standard of living
• Decrease in small businesses because of horizontal integration and monopolies
• Wage laborers work for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Their workplaces are poorly lit and poorly ventilated (coal, oil, chemicals).
• There are no laws against child labor. Child laborers have stunted growth and are more prone to illness.
• The government doesn't move to fix working conditions because the government is being paid by the big companies.
• Unions fight for better pay, better working conditions, less hours, they also protested company towns, government laws, etc.
• Knights of Labor - a union of skilled and unskilled workers, men and women, black and white, who fought for big change. The Knights would coordinate across America and strike together for a shorter work day.
• American Federation of Labor (AFL) - a union of unions, only for skilled workers, fought for change that would benefit them all
• Company Towns - A town that is owned by a company and is built to house the workers of that company. Sometimes a workers pay will be cut but their rent won't be.
• The Knights of Labor had a strike against long work days and they got into a confrontation with police who killed some of the strikers. A couple of days later the Knights organize another strike (on Haymarket Square) to honor those killed. Initially, the strike is nonviolent, but after the Mayor leaves a bomb goes off. This leads to a riot in which 7 cops are killed. The police arrest the leaders of the Knights of Labor without evidence.
• Knights of Labor trial - many of the protestors were immigrants. The trial is about their immigrant status and their political activism so all of them are deemed guilty (without evidence) and sentenced to death.
• Labor unions were given a reputation of being full of violent anarchal immigrants by its opposers
• American Railway Union (ARU) led by Eugene V. Debs