Railroad Industry

Effects1. Transportation2. Catalyst for other industries: steel and coal3. Demand for labor4. Time zones5. Robber barons6. Development of corporate organization and

finance

Railroad Industry

Important figures• “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt• Jay Gould• JP Morgan

Robber barons or captains of industry?

Steel Industry

• Andrew Carnegie• Bessemer Process• Vertically integrated• Gospel of Wealth• Sells out to Morgan: merger creates US Steel– $1.4B market capitalization

Oil Industry

• Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company• Titusville, PA 1859• Kerosene• John D. Rockefeller and Henry M. FLAGLER• Standard Oil Company/Trust• Interlocking directorates• Horizontally AND vertically integrated

Electricity

• Thomas Edison “Wizard of Menlo Park”– “one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent

perspiration”• Incandescent bulb• General Electric Company 1892• George Westinghouse• “War of Currents” AC/DC?• Nikola Tesla’s AC induction motor

Other innovations

Business management• Remington’s typewriter• Burroughs’s adding machine• Patterson’s cash registerTelecommunications• Western Union, 1855• Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, 1876• American Telephone & Telegraph, 1899 – “Ma Bell”

Other trusts

• American Tobacco Company• American Sugar Refining Company• National Packing Company– Beef Trust– Swift and Armour

Ideologies of Industrialization

Conservative/Pro-business• Laissez-faire economics– “leave it be”– Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”

• Social Darwinism– On the Origin of Species 1859– Herbert Spencer , Thomas Malthus

• Gospel of Wealth– Carnegie 1889

Ideologies of Industrialization

Conservative/Pro-business• Horatio Alger– Ragged Dick or, Street Life in New York with the

Boot Blacks, 1868– Rags to riches or rags to middle-class

respectability?

Ideologies of Industrialization

Reformist/Critical• Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial

Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy

– Henry George, 1879– “single tax”

• Looking Backward– Edward Bellamy, utopian socialism

• Wealth and Commonwealth– Henry Demarest Lloyd, 1894

Government regulation

• Interstate Commerce Act 1887– Interstate Commerce Commission– Five members, appointed by President, confirmed

by Senate– “Reasonable rates”– Commerce Clause(Article I, Section 8, Clause 3)– Enumerated power but no teeth

Government regulation

• Sherman Antitrust Act 1890– Bans “any combination in restraint of trade”– First use: injunction against striking rail workers’

union– United States v. E. C. Knight Co. 1895 restricts to

commerce not manufacturing

US Labor Movement

Causes/Grievances• Mechanization and scientific management• Miserable working conditions• Public hostility to un-American behavior• Overwhelming power of capital• Internal divisions– Skilled/craft vs. unskilled– Native-born/”old stock” vs new immigrants

US Labor Movement

Goals• Higher wages• Safer/better working conditions• EIGHT HOUR WORKDAY• Government regulation of railroads• Arbitration of disputes with ownership• Equal pay for women/blacks• Restriction of child labor

US Labor Movement

Organizations• National Labor Union 1866– Colored National Labor Union 1869

• Knights of Labor– Uriah Stephens and Terence Powderly

• American Federation of Labor (AFL)– Samuel Gompers– “bread and butter unionism”

US Labor Movement

Milestone events• Molly Maguire trials– Irish anthracite coal miners– Schuylkill County, PA

• Great Railroad Strike 1877• Haymarket Affair/Bombing/Riot/Massacre

Tuesday, May 4, 1886