Chapter 18

Introduction

• What fueled the growth of the post Civil War economy?

• What is “Big Business”?

• What were the social and political consequences of the rise of Big Business?

Corporations and the 2nd Industrial Revolution

• Businesses grew as a result of rapid expansion of technology, population, governmental aid

• As businesses grew, owners sought to integrate all the processes of production and distribution of goods into single companies

• Mergers with competitors were an effort to dominate entire industries and limit competition

Convergence and Economic Growth

• Convergence

• Natural resources: forests; minerals; rivers

• Rapidly expanding population: immigration

• Development of more efficient and labor-saving technology

• Entreprenuers

• Government : tariffs, providing land and cash, little, if any, regulation of business activity, working conditions

• 1868 New York state legislature legalized bribery of politicians

Advances in Agriculture

• By 1870 US was the world leader in production of wheat and corn

• Commercial cattle industry

• Slaughter and Meat packing

Major Catalysts of the 2nd Industrial Revolution

• Creation of interconnected transportation and communication networks

• RR and Telephone/Telegraph

• Steamships

• By 1880 widespread application of electrical power

• Industrial machinery

• Trolleys and subways

• Production of steel and chemicals

• Systematic application of scientific research to industrial processes

• Refining of crude oil into kerosene and gasoline

• Inventions of new products

The Rise of Big Business

• Railroads

• First industries to represent big business

• Building the Transcontinentals

• Central Pacific RR: East from Sacramento

• Hired between 12,00-14,000 Chinese laborers who came to US in search of gold

• Union Pacific RR: West from Omaha

• 1865 Promontory Utah

May 10th 1889

Central Pacific Railroad workers

The Rise of Big Business

• Financing the Railroads

• Railroads constructed by private companies who raised the funds by selling bonds.

• By 1850’w schemes that provided federal land to the RR companies were approved by Congress

• Inventions Spur Manufacturing

• Barbed wire, refrigerated box cars

• The telephone

The Rise of Big Business

Route of Transcontinental RR Questions

• Why was the transcontinental RR not in the South ?

• Why should government get involved in helping private businesses?

Government Subsidies, Corruption and Big Business

• Tammany Hall: Society of St. Tammany-- 1786 Democratic Party political machine that controlled New York City from 1854-1932

• Boss Tweed ran the 7th ward in NYC for Tammany Hall

• Political patronage

• Irish Immigrant population

• Corruption

Railroad & Business Entrepreneursaka “Robber Barons”

• Jay Gould: involved in a number of businesses and the Boss Tweed ring in New York City. Owned the Erie Railroad with Jay Fiske and put Boss Tweed on the board of directors. Posted 1 million bail for boss Tweed after he was arrested for corruption. 9th richest man in U.S. history. Controlled over 10,000 miles of railroads. Attempted to corner the gold market.

Entrepreneurs

Andrew Carnegie

Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs

• J. P. Morgan, Financier: investment banker

• Sears and Roebuck: Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck—mail order

Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs

The Working Class

The Working Class

• Disorganized Protest

• The Molly Maguires

The Working Class

• The Railroad Strike of 1877

• 1st Interstate Strike

• Financial panic of 1873

• Federal troops

• The Sand-Lot Incident

• Meeting to show support for RR strike turned into an attack on Chinese immigrants

• Anti-Chinese Agitation

• Chinese worked for less and perceived to steal American jobs

• Dennis Kearney and “foreign peril”

• 1882: Congress prohibited Chinese immigration for 10 years

The Working Class

The Working Class

• Toward Permanent Unions

• 1866 National Labor Union

• Contract Labor Act

• Employers to import employees by paying passage

• The Knights of Labor

• Secret

• Protect workers from retaliation

• Hundreds of thousands of workers were members

The Working Class

The Working Class

• Anarchism

• Any form of government limits individual freedom and is abusive

• The Haymarket Affair

• 1886 Knights of Labor rally in Chicago

• Bomb thrown into a group of police officers

• Undermined the Knights of Labor though no one found guilty of incident

The Working Class

The Working Class

• Gompers and the AFL

• 1886 25 skilled workers organizations created the American Federation of Labor

• Samuel Gompers

• The Homestead Strike

• 1892 Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers went on strike at Carnegie’s Homestead Works near Pittsburgh

• An attempt to break the strike ended in bloodshed when members of the Pinkerton Detective Agency

• state militias were sent in to protect workers not involved in the strike.

Black Pullman Porters Union

Pullman cars: hotels on wheels

Pullman hired only African American men as porters

Porters required to work 400 hours per month or 11,000 miles— to receive full pay.

Porters depended on passengers' tips to earn a decent level of pay. Tips > monthly salary earned from the Pullman Company.

High social prestige in African American Community

Thurgood Marshall’s father was a Pullman porter

The Working Class

• The Pullman Strike

• 1894: American RR Worker’s Union refused to handle Pullman cars

• 27 states affected

• Entire RR lines brought to halt

• President Grover Cleveland ordered federal troops to remove cars from tracks citing Federal authority to deliver mail

• Mother Jones (1837-1930)

• Self-declared mother of the labor movement

• Higher wages

• Shorter hours, safer workplaces

• Child labor restrictions

The Working Class

The Working Class

• Socialism and the Unions

• Eugene V. Debs

• The Wobblies

• IWW

Photos Used in this Presentation

• Wikipedia Commons

• Courtesy of Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth Texas

• Courtesy of Union Pacific Historical Collection

• Harper’s Weekly Election Cartoons

• A Philip Randolph Museum: Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters http://www.aphiliprandolphmuseum.com/evo_history4.html