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American Industrialization. Edwin L. Drake. 1. 1859 Titusville, PA Drilled for oil using steam powered engine. Cheaper and more efficient way to obtain oil. Drake’s Well Titusville, Pennsylvania 1859 Produced 10 barrels per day. Thomas Edison. 2.
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Edwin L. Drake 1 • 1859 • Titusville, PA • Drilled for oil using steam powered engine. • Cheaper and more efficient way to obtain oil.
Drake’s WellTitusville,Pennsylvania1859Produced 10 barrels per day
Thomas Edison 2 • 1880 improved the filament in light bulbs (bamboo fiber). • 1882 built first power plant that lit dozens of buildings in NYC. • Used direct current which could only travel short distances. • Received over 1090 patents from U.S. Govt.
George Westinghouse 1 3 • 1885 • Used alternating current (AC). • Cheaper & traveled longer distance than direct current (DC). • Invented the transformer to boost or reduce the power level as needed. • Made home electricity use practical.
Samuel F. B. Morse 4 • Perfected the telegraph (did not invent it). • 1844 – sent first telegraph message. • Morse Code – short & long electrical impulses to represent letters of the alphabet. • Began a communication revolution.
Alexander Graham Bell 5 • 1876 – Patented the “talking telegraph.” • 1885 – Set up the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) to build long distance telephone lines. • 1900 – 1.5 million telephones in use in America.
Henry Bessemer 6 • 1856 – received first patent for the “Bessemer process.” • Made production of steel from iron faster and cheaper. • Mass production of steel allowed the building of skyscrapers, railroad rails, and large suspension bridges (Brooklyn Bridge 1883).
Andrew Carnegie 7 • Born in Scotland. • Immigrated to U.S. when 12. • Worked as a bobbin boy in a textile mill. • Created Carnegie Steel. • Became wealthiest man in U.S. • “Gospel of Wealth” philosophy.
Gospel of Wealth 8 • People should be free to make as much money as possible, but should give most of it away to improve society as a whole.
John D. Rockefeller 9 • Son of a poor street peddler in NYC. • Invested in a grain and meat partnership during Civil War. • 1870 – joined with other businessmen to form the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. • 1882 – joined Standard Oil stock with 40 other oil companies to form Standard Oil Trust.
Transcontinental railroad 10 • 1862-1869 • Railway extending from the east to the west coast. • Funded by the U.S. government. • Irish immigrants worked from the East. • Chinese immigrants worked from the West. • Completed about 8 miles of track per day. • Tracks met at Promontory Point, Utah.
Transcontinental railroad Central Pacific Locomotive #1
Transcontinental Railroad Route Promontory Point, Utah
Significance of Railroads 11 • Faster, cheaper way to move people and products. • Connects isolated markets. • Encourages other industry to develop. • 50% of steel and 20% of coal produced went to the RR’s.
Railroad Corruption 12 Overcharged customers. Rebates to favored customers. Charged more for a short-haul than a long-haul. Kept rates secret and charged different customers different amounts for the same service.
Interstate Commerce Act 13 • 1887 - Regulated the prices railroads charged to move freight between states - based on distance traveled. Outlawed special rates. • Showed that Congress had the power to regulate interstate trade. • Established the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Social Darwinism 14 • Philosophy that applied Charles Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” to the business world. • The most “fit” businesses would grow and prosper and the “unfit” ones would fail. • So government should stay out of the affairs of business and let the process of “natural selection” operate.
Oligopoly 15 • A type of market structure in which a particular product is produced by only a few large profitable companies. • Examples: automobiles, breakfast cereals, appliances.
Monopoly 16 • Complete control of a product or service by one company. • Happens when one company forces its competition out of business or buys them out. • Bad for consumers because without competition, a company could charge unreasonable prices.
Trust 17 • A type of business monopoly. • Instead of one business buying out the competition, several companies combine their assets and give control to a “board of trustees.” • How J.D. Rockefeller controlled most of the oil in America without technically violating the law.
Vertical Consolidation 18 • When a company owns all the businesses that make up the phases of a product’s manufacture. • Example: Carnegie’s steel empire – He owned the iron ore mines, the coal mines, the steel mills, the ships and railroads – EVERYTHING. involved in making and shipping steel (from the ground up).
Vertical Consolidation Carnegie’s business structure
Horizontal Consolidation 19 • The joining of many firms engaged in the same business so that you have no competition. • Example: Rockefeller acquired all the independent oil refineries that had been his competitors.
Horizontal Consolidation Rockefeller’s business structure
Economies of Scale 20 As production increases, the cost of each item decreases. (The more of something a company makes, the cheaper the product becomes.)
Harsh Working Conditions 21 • Workers fined or fired for being late or talking • Unsafe • Deafening noise • Poor lighting and ventilation • Frequent fires and accidents continued
Harsh Working Conditions 21 • 500,000 workers were completely disabled each year . • 35,000 killed each year. • No corporate accountability for worker safety. No workers’ compensation laws or insurance. • You get hurt, you get fired.
Sweatshops 22 • A shop where employees worked long hours under poor working conditions for low wages.
Child Labor 23 • No child labor laws existed. • Children as young as 6 could work in a factory. • Many children left school at 12 to go work permanently just so families could eat. • Many were injured or killed.
