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Industrialization. The “Steel Horse”. Five main lines Great Northern Northern Pacific Central/Union Pacific Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Southern Pacific. Significance and impact. +++++++’s Speed and mobility. Town growers. Populating the West. Creation of corporations.
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The “Steel Horse” • Five main lines • Great Northern • Northern Pacific • Central/Union Pacific • Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe • Southern Pacific
+++++++’s Speed and mobility. Town growers. Populating the West. Creation of corporations. Employment of thousands. Time ------------’s Led to the destruction of Native-American culture in the Plains. Creation of Trusts etc. (greed) Buffalo Exploitation of Chinese and Irish A double-edged sword??
Personalities • Railroads, banking, inventions, oil and steel. Business practices directed at maintaining a monopoly: • “stock watering”, bribery, cutthroat tactics, “pool”, “interlocking directorates”, vertical/horizontal integration, trust, interlocking directorates….
“Greed is Good” • Rags to riches stories. Horatio Algier. Poor Henry. • Gospel of Wealth • Social Darwinism • Deepening class struggles and the division of wealth. • Becoming “fertile ground” for-----????
Government attempts at Regulation. Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. • Regulate the railroads. Prohibited rebates and pools. • Publish rates openly. No discrimination. • Created the Interstate Commerce Commission. Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 • Attempt to curb monopolies.No restraint of trade. Ineffectual due to loopholes.
Impact of Industrialization • Industry moves to the South. • Immigrants, the poor, women and children.
Labor fights back The Union. Union weapons: • strike, boycott, walkout, “closed-shop”. Corporate weapons: • “scabs”, strikebreakers, police and the courts, lockouts, “yellow-dog contracts”, blacklists, company towns.
Early Labor Movement National Labor Union (1866) Won the 8 hour day for gov’t workers. Hurt by the depression of the 1870’s. Knights of Labor “An injury to one is the concern of all.” Allowed skilled and unskilled labor.
IWPA strike in Chicago.. 8-hr day Protest rally—anarchists. Bomb explodes killing several and wounding over 100. Eight arrested. 4 hung. Justice??? "The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today." Haymarket Square Bombing--1886
Carnegie and steel. Reformer in his own eyes…. Economic downturn. Violence… Homestead Strike--1892
American Railway Union. Federal angle. Eugene V. Debs Pullman Strike -1894
American Federation of Labor • Samuel Gompers • Self-governing national unions. • Sought better working conditions, pay and hours. • Very effective. • Only allowed skilled labor. • Labor Day, 1894
Bertrand Russell • “Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate” • Assess the validity of this quote using the provided documents and your knowledge of the time period 1870-1900.
Bertrand Russell • “Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.” • Assess the validity of this quote using the provided documents and your knowledge of the time period 1870-1900.