unit 6/7/8

• Light Bulb and Power Plants

  • Allowed for the extension of the workday (previously ended at sundown)
  • Wider availability of electricity
  • Created new uses for electricity for industry and home
• Economic Growth


  • Economy grew at a tremendous rate
  • People known as "captains of industry" (or "robber barons") became extremely rich and powerful
  • Owned and controlled new manufacturing enterprises
• Industrialization


  Introduction of faster machines in manufacturing leading to economies of scale and decreased cost per unit
• Assembly line production


  Employees performing repetitive tasks leading to increased efficiency but also dangerous working conditions and long working hours
• Corporate Consolidation


  Large businesses resulting from economies of scale and lack of government regulations, leading to monopolies and holding companies
• Horizontal Integration


  Combining smaller companies within the same industry to form a larger company through legal buyouts or illegal practices
• Vertical Integration


  One company buys out all the factors of production from raw materials to finished product, still allowing competition in the marketplace
• Problems with Consolidation


  • Required large amounts of money leading to financial panics and bank failures, public resentment, and government response in the form of antitrust legislation
• Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890


  Law forbidding "restraint of trade" combination, ambiguous wording leading to pro-business Supreme Court interpretation
• Gospel of Wealth


  Idea that wealth should be used for the betterment of society and not just for personal gain, advocated by Andrew Carnegie
• Factories and City Life

  • Factories were established in cities in the 19th century to reduce labor costs and maximize profits
  • Women and children were hired, as well as newly arrived immigrants in search of work
  • As a result, the cities suffered from poverty, crime, disease, and a lack of livable housing
  • Factories were dangerous, and there was no insurance or workmen's compensation
  • Middle class moved away to nicer neighborhoods, leaving mostly immigrants and migrants in the city
• Majority of immigrants arrived from Southern and Eastern Europe starting from 1880
• Widespread misery in cities led to the formation of labor unions to improve treatment of workers
• Knights of Labor


  • One of the first national labor unions, founded in 1869
  • Advocated arbitration over strikes
  • Became increasingly violent in efforts to achieve goals
  • Popularity declined due to violence and association with political radicalism
  • Terrence Powderly, failed strikes, and Haymarket Square Riot contributed to decline
  • Public saw unions as subversive and violent
• Homestead Steel Strike


  • Workers protested wage cut, refusal to form a union
  • Factory manager Henry Clay Frick locked out workers, hired replacements, and called in Pinkerton Detective force
  • Clash between Pinkertons and workers led to deaths and retreat of Pinkertons
  • Pennsylvania state militia ended strike, Frick hired new workers
• Pullman Palace Car Factory Strike

  • Workers faced wage cut, increased housing costs
  • American Railway Union joined the strike, 250,000 railway workers walked off job, shutting down rail travel in 27 states
  • ARU president Eugene Debs refused to end strike despite court order
  • Debs convicted and jailed, became leader of American Socialist Party after release
• American Federation of Labor (AFL)

  • Samuel Gompers, focused on bread and butter issues, higher wages and shorter workdays
  • Excluded unskilled workers, Black people, women among membership
• Charitable Middle-Class Organizations


  • Lobbied local governments for building safety codes, better sanitation, public schools
  • Founded and lived in settlement houses in poor neighborhoods
  • Community centers providing schooling, childcare, cultural activities
  • Jane Addams, Hull House in Chicago, awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1931
• South During Machine Age

  • Agriculture continued as main form of labor
  • Textile mills and tobacco processing plants emerged
  • Majority of Southerners remained farmers
• Postwar Economics in the South

  • Many farmers forced to sell land
  • Wealthy landowners bought and consolidated into larger farms
  • Landless farmers (Black & white) forced into sharecropping
  • Crop lien system designed to keep poor in debt
  • Unscrupulous landlords kept poor in virtual slavery
• Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise Speech

  • Outlined hope for drawing near to white race
  • Pledge for patient, sympathetic help of Black race
  • Call for higher good (blotting out of racial animosities)
  • Desire for absolute justice and law obedience
• Jim Crow Laws


  • Numerous discriminatory laws passed by towns and cities
  • Supreme Court ruled Fourteenth Amendment did not protect Blacks from private discrimination
• Booker T. Washington


  • Born into slavery, no illusions of white society accepting Blacks as equals
  • Promoted economic independence as means to improve Black lot
  • Founded Tuskegee Institute for vocational and industrial training for Black people
  • Accused of being an accommodationist
  • Refused to press for immediate equal rights
  • Reality of his time set his goals
• Booker T. Washington vs. W. E. B. Du Bois

  • Washington's Atlanta Exposition speech
  • Washington viewed as submissive by Du Bois
  • Du Bois referred to speech as "The Atlanta Compromise"
• The Railroads and Developments in the West


  • Ranchers and miners were growing industries in the western frontier
  • Ranchers drove their herds across the western plains and deserts, disregarding property rights and Native American rights to the land
  • Miners prospected for rich mines and sold their rights to mining companies when found
  • Lincoln challenged America to have a Transcontinental Railroad connecting the country within a decade (1863-1869)
  • Railroad construction was paid for by the public but the rail proprietors resisted government control of their industry
  • Railroad companies organized massive buffalo hunts, which nearly led to extinction of the species and caused conflict with Native Americans
  • Rails transformed depot towns into cities and facilitated faster travel, contact with ideas and technological advances from the East, and contributed to the Industrial Revolution
  • Rails also brought standardization of time telling through "railroad time" and time zones
  • Statehood of North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho was achieved by 1889
  • The result of the 1890 census prompted Turner's Frontier Thesis, which argued that the frontier shaped the American character, spirit, democracy, and provided a safety valve for urban areas
  • In the Great Plains, farming and ranching were the main forms of employment, aided by new farm machinery and mail-order retail
  • The Homestead Act and Morrill Land-Grant Act were passed by the federal government to attract settlers and develop the West
  • Agricultural science became a large industry in the US
  • The Nez Perce tribe in Oregon was forced to migrate to a reservation in Idaho, leading to resistance by Chief Joseph
  • With families and corporations heading West, government and conservation groups sought added protection of natural resources
  • U.S. Fish Commission was established to protect fish species, which led to the creation of National Parks and Forest Services
• Gilded Age of American Politics

  • Era between Reconstruction and 1900
  • Dubbed by Mark Twain
  • America appeared prosperous but wealth built on poverty of many
  • Shiny exterior of politics hiding corruption and patronage
  • Political machines, not municipal governments, ran cities
  • Big business bought votes in Congress and fleeced consumers
  • Workers had little protection from employer greed
  • Presidents were generally not corrupt but weak
• Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur


  • Focused on civil service reform
• Grover Cleveland


  Believed in minimal government intervention
• Benjamin Harrison and allies


  • Passed major legislation (meat inspection act, banning lotteries, battleships)
• Activism led to public discomfort and return of Cleveland to White House
• Regulating Business and Government


  • First attempts at regulation in response to widespread corruption
  • States imposed railroad regulations due to price gouging
  • 1877 Supreme Court upheld state law regulating railroads in Munn v. Illinois
  • Precedent for regulation in public interest established
  • 1887 Congress passed first federal regulatory law (Interstate Commerce Act)
  • Set up the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to regulate railroad activities
  • ICC was active until deregulated by Reagan administration in 1980s
• Women's Suffrage


  • Became an important political issue
  • Led by Susan B. Anthony
  • Bill introduced to Congress every year
  • Fight began in earnest
  • American Suffrage Association fought for state suffrage amendments
  • Partial successes achieved in gaining the vote on school issues
  • Women gained right to vote with 19th Amendment in 1920 (50 years after male suffrage)
• Post-Civil War Era


  • Increased production in both industrial and agricultural fronts
  • Drop in prices due to greater supply
  • Farmers faced trouble due to fixed payments in long-term debts
  • Farmers supported increased money supply for easier payments and inflation
  • Banks opposed the plan, preferring gold-backed money supply
  • Farmers' plan called for liberal use of silver coins (supported by western miners and midwestern/southern farmers)
  • Issue had elements of regionalism and class strife
• Grange Movement and Farmers' Alliances

  • Grange Movement founded in 1867, with over a million members by 1875
  • Cooperatives for farmers to buy machinery and sell crops as a group
  • Political endorsement and lobbying for legislation
  • Replaced by Farmers' Alliances, allowing women's political activism
  • Grew into political party People's Party (political arm of Populist movement)
• People's Party


  • 1892 convention, with platform called the Omaha Platform
  • Call for silver coinage, government ownership of railroads and telegraphs, graduated income tax, direct election of senators, shorter workdays
  • 1892 presidential candidate James Weaver received over 1 million votes
  • Populist goals gained popularity during the financial crisis of 1893-1897
• Granger Laws


  Regulated the railroads in the 1870s and 1880s
• Populist Movement


  • 1896 Populists backed Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan
  • Bryan ran on platform of free silver, loosening control of northern banking interests
  • Republicans allied with big businesses, McKinley received huge contributions from large companies
  • Bryan lost election, Populist movement declined with improved economy
• Before the Civil War

  • Most Americans earned their living through farming
  • No federal income tax until 16th Amendment in 1913
  • Tariff was a huge controversy
• Tariff of Abominations & Nullification Crisis

  Tariff of Abominations (1828) caused Nullification Crisis during Jackson's first administration
• Tariff after Civil War

  • Tariff dominated national politics
  • Industrialists demanded high tariffs to protect domestic industries
  • Farmers and laborers hurt by high tariffs
  • Democrats supported lower tariffs
  • Republicans advocated high protective tariffs