U.S. HISTORY UNIT 2 – INDUSTRIALIZATION and IMMIGRATION

Section 1 – Immigration THE “NEW IMMIGRATION” of the LATE 1800s – During the 17

th and most of the 18

th centuries, most immigrants

coming to America had been from northern and western Europe – countries such as England, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. But there was a shift in the late 1800s, when most immigrants coming to the U.S. were from southern and eastern Europe. Many of these immigrants entered the U.S. in New York City. The first thing they saw was the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, which became the symbol of America to many immigrants looking for a new life. After a difficult 14-day journey across the Atlantic, immigrants would usually disembark at Ellis Island, a tiny island in New York Harbor. There, they were inspected by doctors checking for diseases or other illnesses. If someone failed to pass inspection, they were often sent back to Europe and separated from their families. REASONS FOR IMMIGRATION – As mentioned, by the late 1800s, more than half of all immigrants in the United States were from eastern and southern Europe, including Italians, Greeks, Poles, Slavs and Russians. Many of the 14 million immigrants who came to the U.S. during this time were Jews who were being persecuted in Europe for their religious beliefs. There were numerous factors that pushed immigrants to the United States: 1) poor farming conditions in their homeland; 2) wars in their homeland forced them out; 3) political tyranny and religious oppression. Things that pulled immigrants to the U.S. included: 1) plenty of land and plenty of work for farmers; 2) the U.S. had a higher standard of living; 3) people were free to live they way they wanted in America. ETHNIC CITIES – By the late 1800s, immigrants made up a great portion of the country‟s largest cities, including New York City, Chicago and Detroit. In these cities, immigrants lived in neighborhoods that were normally separated into ethnic groups such as “Little Italy,” or „Chinatown,” or Little Havana, or the Jewish “Lower East Side.” There, they spoke their native tongue and recreated the culture of their homeland in a tiny part of an American city. How well immigrants adjusted depended heavily on how quickly they learned English and adapted to the American culture. POOR CONDITIONS FOR IMMIGRANTS – Immigration led to a massive increase in the number of slums in U.S. cities. Tenement buildings – cheaply built apartment buildings – were often overcrowded and lacked many necessities. The journalist whose books gave a vivid account of the life for ethnic groups of New York City living in this tenement slums during this time was the Muckraker Jacob Riis. His books helped shine a spotlight on problems in the inner cities and helped to put pressure on the government to make reforms to help the poor. Many immigrants counted on politicians from corrupt political machines to take care of their needs. POOR WORKING CONDITIONS – Conditions for immigrants at work were no better than they were at home. Back in the day before a minimum wage, a 5-day work week and workers‟ rights, immigrants had to work in harsh conditions for little pay. Factories often locked their workers in the building and did not allow them out until their shift ended. Often, immigrant children were put to work in sweatshops – businesses with harsh working conditions that took advantage of immigrants who were desperate for work. Businesses wanted to hire children because they were a cheap source of labor. Immigrants didn‟t mind their children working because it gave families more money. Many people began calling for the government to make changes to prevent such abuses in the workplace. One event that led to changes was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FIRE – The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City in 1911 was the largest industrial disaster in the history of New York City, causing the death of 146 garment workers who either died from the fire or jumped to their deaths. When a fire broke out in the factory, workers were locked in and could not get out. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for safer and better working conditions for sweatshop workers in that industry. NATIVISM – The flood of immigrants into the United States in the late 1800s worried many Americans. They felt their way of life could be changed and often felt they were being overtaken by immigrants with different cultures. This fear led to a rise of what is known as nativism. Nativism is an extreme dislike for foreigners by native-born people and a desire to limit immigration. Many labor unions also opposed immigration, arguing that immigrant workers would work for low wages, thus undermining American-born workers. Nativism has not been uncommon in the United States. In the mid-1800s, many feared a massive rise in the amount of Irish immigrants coming to the U.S. In mid-1900s, many Americans feared an increase in eastern Europeans who many felt were Communists. Today, nativism is widespread in the Southwest as people fear a rise in immigrants coming from Mexico and other parts of Latin America. During the late 1800s, numerous laws were passed to slow immigration, including the Chinese Exclusion Act.

ASIAN IMMIGRATION – While there was a flood of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe on the east coast, the west coast (California) in the late 1800s saw a boom in the amount of immigrants coming from Asia. While immigrants coming to New York disembarked at Ellis Island, Asian immigrants were checked out at Angel Island in San Francisco. Most Chinese immigrants came to the United States because overcrowding in China led to high unemployment, poverty and famine. The gold rush also brought many Chinese to America. Finally, the Taiping Rebellion forced many people out of China. CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT – The Chinese Exclusion Act was the law passed by Congress that great reduced the amount of Asian immigration coming to America in the late 1800s. The law barred Chinese immigration for 10 years and prevented the Chinese from becoming U.S. citizens. The law greatly reduced the amount of Chinese living in the U.S. the law was repealed (they got rid of it) in the 1940s. MIGRATING TO THE CITIES – Following the U.S. Civil War the population of urban areas in the United States – cities – skyrocketed. The population of U.S. cities went from 10 million in 1870 to 30 million by 1900. New York City alone jumped from 800,000 to 3.5 million. Chicago went from a town of 109,000 (smaller than Grand Prairie) to 1.6 million in that same time span. Most people moving to cities were poor farmers who gave up farming to work in factories in the cities. Most of these people ended up working long hours for little pay. Still, the pay was better than they were receiving in the farming business. Cities had a lot to offer people that they didn‟t have in rural areas: things such as bright lights, running water and modern plumbing. URBAN ENVIRONMENT – As people flooded to the cities, engineers and architects developed new approaches to housing and transportation for a large amount of people. As cities grew, the price of land in cities increased as well as people needed land for housing to live or businesses to grow. With a limited amount of land, businesses in cities had to build up, not out. This led to the building of skyscrapers. New York City quickly became the city with more skyscrapers than any city in the world. The invention of elevators made building skyscrapers more practical. Chicago was another city whose skyline grew at an enormous rate. Meanwhile, cities also moved to improve transportation. This led to the development of mass transit to move large amounts of people around cities quickly. Some forms of mass transit included cable cars (first built in San Francisco), trolleys and, eventually, subways. New York‟s subway system is the largest in the world. URBAN AREAS SEPARATED BY CLASS – As cities grew, people of different levels of society became segregated (separated) from each other. The upper class – or high society – often lived in mansions outside the inner city. American industrialization helped to create a large middle class of society – people who were not rich, but had good paying jobs such as doctors, lawyers, engineers, managers and teachers. Many of these middle class people also lived outside the inner city, creating what became known as “streetcar suburbs,” because these people took the transit system into the city to work. In the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, places like Plano, Irving and Grand Prairie are suburbs. The working class often lived much closer to the inner city than the upper or middle classes. Housing was much cheaper in the inner city, where most people lived in tenements. Tenements were dark, crowded multi-family apartments. These poor conditions led to a harder, rougher daily life for the working class. URBAN PROBLEMS – As the cities grew, so did problems. With overcrowding in the inner city, it created many problems for urban areas. Some of these problems included crime, violence, disease and air pollution. Major crimes, such as murder, increased at a high rate. Native-born Americans often blamed immigrants for this increase in crime. Disease and pollution posed even bigger problems. Poor sewage led to contaminated drinking water, a limited water supply and triggered epidemics.

U.S. HISTORY UNIT 2 – INDUSTRIALIZATION and IMMIGRATION

Section 2 – The Rise of Industry THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION – Although the Industrial Revolution began in the United States in the late 1800s, the nation was still primarily an agricultural country in the year‟s leading up the Civil War. Following the Civil War, however, industry rapidly expanded as millions left the farm and moved to cities to work in factories and mines. By the early 1900s, the United States was the world‟s leading industrial nation. The abundance of natural resources was a major reason for this industrial success. Wheat, corn and cotton came from the newly settled Great Plains while gold, silver and iron came from the Rocky Mountains in the West. A new natural resource also came from the region – oil. The construction of the transcontinental railway also was a factor in the rise of the Industrial Revolution. Another factor was the population increase in the United States. Between 1860 and 1910, thanks in part of 20 million new immigrants – the U.S. population tripled, creating a large workforce and a greater demand for consumer goods. Finally new inventions and the free enterprise system were two other factors that led to a rise in the Industrial Rev. FREE ENTERPRISE SYSTEM – One important factor that enabled the United States to industrialize rapidly was the free enterprise system. The free enterprise system is the economic system where citizens of a country can own businesses without government interference and are free to run their business (or enterprise) as they want. This was also known as the laissez-faire theory of business. Laissez-faire is French for “leave alone.” The laissez-faire theory believed that if the government did not interfere with people‟s private businesses – if they left them alone -- then they would be free to run efficiently. The laissez-faire theory relies on supply and demand rather than the government regulating prices. The only time the government should interfere with business owners is protect private property rights and maintain peace. The free enterprise system allowed new businesses and new inventions to come about. NEW INVENTIONS – The free enterprise system helped to led to new inventions by private businesses. This flood of inventions helped to increase the nation‟s productive capacity and improved the network of transportation and communications that was vital to the nation‟s industrial growth. New inventions led to an expansion of business, which in turn created more jobs. One of the most dramatic inventions of the late 1800s was in the field of communications. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell developed the first working telephone. This invention revolutionized both business and private communication by increasing the scale and speed of nationwide communications. Bell later formed American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). Another important inventor in U.S. history was Thomas Edison. Edison had numerous inventions, but his most significant were the invention of the light bulb and the phonograph. The invention of the light bulb led to the wide spread use of electrical power and factories being able to run at night. This in turn produced more jobs and more product, which led to lower prices. These technological innovations of the late 1800s and early 1900s raised the standard of living for people in the United States and other industrialized nations. TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD – After the Civil War, railroad construction expanded dramatically, linking distant regions of the nation in a transportation network. By 1900 the United States, now a booming industrial power, had over 200,000 miles of railroad track. The railroad boom began in 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act. This law provided the funding to build a transcontinental railroad – a railroad that went from coast to coast and joined the East Coast to the West Coast. The two railroads that joined together to create this “transcontinental railroad was the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific. Thousands of workers – most of which were Chinese immigrants – worked to make the transcontinental railroad possible. Because of a shortage of labor in California, the Central Pacific hired about 10,000 from China. The expansion of the railroad industry helped to increase both the availability and the variety of consumers goods available to U.S. citizens. RAILROAD PIONEERS – Numerous men had a huge impact on the railroad industry. The person who engineered the building of the Union Pacific railroad was a former Union army general named Greenville Dodge. The Central Pacific was owned by a group of owners known as the “Big Four.” One member of this group was Leland Stanford, who would later become governor of California and would found Stanford University. Another person who became rich and powerful and famous from the railroad business was Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt combined – or consolidated – three New York railroads to form the New York Central, the most important railroad company on the East Coast. Vanderbilt was the first to offer direct rail service between New York City and Chicago. He later built New York‟s Grand Central Station. A NATIONAL SYSTEM – Before the 1880s, there was no set time in the United States. It could be 4:00 in Dallas, 3:30 in Chicago and 2:15 in New York City. This caused a problem for railroad service. To solve the problem, the American Railway Association created four time zones in the United States. In 1918, the federal government made the time zones law for the entire nation.

U.S. HISTORY UNIT 2 – INDUSTRIALIZATION and IMMIGRATION

Section 3 – Robber Barons ROBBER BARONS – The massive expansion of railroads made people like Leland Stanford and Cornelius Vanderbilt millionaires almost overnight. But some people felt like these entrepreneurs were taking advantage of people and were building their fortunes by swindling investors and taxpayers and bribing government officials. People called these business men who they felt unfairly swindled people out of money to make their fortune robber barons. One of the most famous scandals involving robber barons was the Credit Mobilier Scandal. CREDIT MOBILIER SCANDAL – The Credit Mobilier Scandal was the business venture that triggered one of the greatest financial and political scandals of the 19

th century in the United States. A part owner of the Union Pacific

Railroad who was also a U.S. Congressman – Oakes Ames – bribed members of Congress to vote to give the Union Pacific more money from the government, even though the Union Pacific had made millions of dollars. But the money had been going to Credit Mobilier, which had contracts to do work for the Union Pacific but greatly overcharged for their services. The scandal was that the owners of the Union Pacific – including Congressman Ames – were also the owners of Credit Mobilier. By overcharging the railroad, owners of Credit Mobilier were essentially taking money from the government and from taxpayers. The Credit Mobilier Scandal was comparable to the Enron scandal of the late 1990s. THE RISE of BIG BUSINESS – Before the Civil War, most manufacturing businesses were relatively small. A few men got together to start and run a business. By 1900, that had changed dramatically as businesses became huge enterprises involving hundreds or even thousands of investors and even more employees. Big business would not have been possible without the corporation. A corporation is an organization owned by many people, but treated by law as though it were a single person. The people who own the corporations are known as stockholders. The shares these “part owners” had are called stock. A person can own just a few shares of a company or can hold hundreds of thousands of shares and be a primary stockholder, which gives that person more power in the company. ECONOMIES of SCALE – With money raised with the sale of stock, a corporation often uses that money to reinvest in things that make the corporation grow, such as new technology, more machines or more workers. This enabled corporations to achieve what is called economies of scale, in which corporations make goods more cheaply because they produce so much so quickly by using large manufacturing facilities. Wal-Mart‟s ability to sells things at a very low price because it sells such a high volume is an example of economies of scale. Because companies like Wal-Mart came produce goods more cheaply and efficiently, it translates into lower prices for the consumer. ANDREW CARNEGIE – One of the most famous entrepreneurs in the United States in the late 1800s was a man named Andrew Carnegie. From a poor upbringing, Carnegie went on to become a pioneer in the U.S. steel industry and one of the richest men in the world. After making money by investing in railroads, Carnegie decided to concentrate his investments in the steel industry. He started a steel company in Pittsburgh in 1875. Using a new technique of making steel, a technique known as the Bessemer Process, Carnegie revolutionized the steel industry. The Bessemer Process was the process of making high quality steel both efficiently and cheaply. Carnegie created what was known as vertical integration. MONOPOLIES – To increase his factory‟s efficiency, Andrew Carnegie developed one of the first vertically integrated companies. A vertically integrated company owns all of the different businesses in which it depends upon to operate. Vertically integrated company saved companies money while it enabled big companies to become even bigger. Later, Carnegie helped to develop the technique known as horizontal integration. Horizontal integration combined many firms engaged in the same type of business into one large corporation. When a company achieves control of an entire market, it becomes a monopoly. When one company has a monopoly, there is no competition and that company has the power to charge whatever it wants for its product. Big businesses disliked competition because it reduced profits. TRUSTS – Because of the fear of monopolies, many states passed laws making it illegal for one company to own stock in another (thus creating horizontal integration). To get around these laws, some corporations formed trusts, which was a new way of merging businesses in a way that did not violate the laws against owning other companies. A trust is a legal concept that allows one person to manage another person‟s property. In reality, a trust was just a monopoly and was just a way that a corporation would form itself to avoid laws against monopolies. Many people called for government action to stop these trust companies from having a monopoly. For instance, many felt that Vanderbilt had created a monopoly in the railroad industry. In 1890, the government did take action to try to stop trusts when the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed.

SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT – Trusts – which were corporations created to allow a business to create a monopoly – became very popular in the late 1800s. To curb the power of trusts, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. At first, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was not very effective because the courts were responsible for enforcement. The courts saw nothing in the law that would require big companies to change they way they did business. Therefore, the law was ineffective. The Sherman Anti-trust law was another example of how the government was ineffective in dealing with the nation‟s problems. By the election of 1890, many people began to believe that the two political parties could not solve the nation‟s problems. It would not be until Theodore Roosevelt became president in the early 1900s that the government was able to put a stop to the powerful monopolies and trusts. NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE – The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange based in New York City. It is the largest stock exchange in the world by dollar volume and has 2,764 listed securities.

The New York Stock Exchange

gives an efficient method for buyers and sellers to trade shares of stock in companies registered for public trading. The exchange provides price discovery via an auction environment designed to produce the fairest price for both parties.

U.S. HISTORY UNIT 2 – INDUSTRIALIZATION and IMMIGRATION

Section 4 – Unions UNIONS – As the United States became more industrialized in the years following the Civil War (late 1800s), conditions for workers in industries were difficult. Work was monotonous and repetitive. Workers often worked in unhealthy and unsafe environments. These conditions led to the formation of workers unions. Unions fought to protect the rights of workers from their employers. Some things that labor unions fought for (and got) included a five-day work week, an 8-hour work day, and a minimum wage law. Later unions would gain things such as workers compensation, paid vacations and other benefits. There were two kinds of unions: 1) trade unions, which were made up of people who had special skills and training; and 2) industrial unions, which largely represented common laborers in factories. Employers had to deal with trade unions because they needed the skills the workers in unions had. However, employers of large corporations disliked industrial unions. If workers felt they were being mistreated, they could strike. A strike is when workers refuse to work until their demands for better conditions or pay is met by the employers. OPPOSITION AGAINST UNIONS – Industrial corporations tried to stop unions from forming in their companies in several ways. One was they required workers to sign contracts promising not to join unions. Another was that they hired detectives to point out union organizers. Those who tried to start a union or a strike were fired and placed on a blacklist – a list of “troublemakers.” Once a worker was blacklisted, that person found it almost impossible to get hired. Another way employers tried to stop unions was by using a lockout to break the union. In a lockout, employers locked workers out of the factory and refused to pay them. If the union called a strike, employers would hire replacements workers. MARXISM – Workers who wanted to organize faced several problems. No laws gave them the right to organize and some people thought that unions threatened American institutions. Others believed that unions were influenced by Marxism – the ideas of Karl Marx. Marx believed that the basic force that shaped society was the conflict between workers and business owners. He believed that workers would eventually revolt, take control of factories, and overthrow the government. Once the workers did this, the new workers-led government would take all private property and distribute wealth evenly among every citizen. This is what is today known as communism. Marxism greatly influenced European unions and led to numerous revolutions in Europe in the mid-1800s. When immigrants came to the United States from Europe, many feared they would bring their ideas of workers revolutions with them, leading to a distrust of many Americans of immigrant workers. GREAT RAILROAD STRIKE of 1877 – Although many workers tried to organize unions, they were not often successful. Government laws favored business owners and, as mentioned earlier, business owners fired many who tried to organize labor. In 1873, a severe economic recession known as the Panic of 1873 struck the economy and forced many companies to cut wages. In 1877, as the recession continued, several railroads announced another cut in wages. This triggered the first nationwide labor strike as railroad workers across the nation walked off their job. It became known as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Some workers turned violent and numerous states had to call out their militias (National Guard) to stop the violence. President Rutherford B. Hayes finally called on the army to open the railroads. THE KNIGHTS of LABOR – Following the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, many labor organizers believed workers across the nation needed to be better organized. In response, they formed the first nationwide industrial union – the Knights of Labor. The Knights called for an eight-hour workday. They supported the use of arbitration, which is the process in which an impartial third party helps workers and management reach an agreement in labor disputes. However, in the 1880s, the Knights of labor began to organize strikes. They were successful at first, leading to a huge boom in the membership of unions in the late 1800s. HAYMARKET RIOT – In 1886, union workers called for a nationwide strike on May 1 to show support for the eight-hour workday. On May 3, a clash between strikers and the police at Haymarket Square in Chicago left one strikers dead. The next day, an anarchist group organized a meeting to protest the killing. About 3,000 people showed up. Someone threw a bomb, the police opened fire, and workers shot back. Seven police officers and four workers died. The police arrested eight men – all who were German immigrants and anarchists (wanted to do away with government). Many people were upset about the arrest. Even though no one knew who threw the bomb, it was what started the Haymarket Riot. The men were convicted and four of them were executed. One of the men who were arrested was a member of the Knights of Labor. This hurt the union‟s reputation and the union quickly lost membership. EUGENE V. DEBS – Another industrial union that was formed during the late 1800s was the American Railway union (ARU). Its leader was Eugene V. Debs. One company the ARU unionized was the Pullman Palace Car Company in Illinois. In 1893, when a recession hit the nation, the company cut wages. Workers were unable to pay their rent. In 1894 the company fired three workers who complained. A strike began in protest that tied up the railroads and threatened the nation‟s economy.

AMERICAN FEDERAL of LABOR – Although industrial unions were not very successful in the late 1800s, trade unions were. Over twenty of the nation‟s trade unions organized together and became known as the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Samuel Gompers was the union‟s first leader. He believed that unions should stay out of politics. He believed that they should fight for things such as higher wages and better working conditions. He preferred negotiation over striking. The AFL had three goals: 1) it tried to convince companies to recognize unions and agree to negotiations; 2) it pushed for closed shops (where companies hire only union members); and 3) it pushed for an eight-hour workday. By 1900, the AFL was the largest union in the country. However, by 1900 most workers in the nation were still not union members. Today the AFL is the AFL-CIO and is the largest trade union in the nation. WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE – After the Civil War, the number of women who earned wages increased. About one-third of these women worked as servants. Another third worked as teachers, nurses, or secretaries. The final third were industrial workers. Many of these women worked in clothing and food processing factories. Women were paid less than men, and most unions did not include women. As a result, in 1903 two women formed the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL). This was the first union organized to address women‟s labor issues.