Robber Barons, or Captains of Industry?

1. Robber Barons, or Captains of Industry?

2. Causes of Rapid Industrialization • Steam Revolution of the 1830s-1850s. • The Railroad fueled the growing US economy: *First big business in the US. * A great place to invest $$$. * The key to opening the West. * Aided the development of other industries.

3. Causes of Rapid Industrialization • Technological innovations.* Bessemer and open hearth process make STEEL * Refrigerated cars * Edison --> “Wizard of Menlo Park” --> light bulb, phonograph, motion pictures.

4. Causes of Rapid Industrialization • Unskilled & semi-skilled labor in abundance. • Abundant capital. • New, talented group of businessmen [entrepreneurs] and advisors. • Population doubles every 25 years. • Government willing to help businesses to stimulate economic growth. • Abundant natural resources.

5. The Reorganization of Work Frederick W. Taylor The Principles of Scientific Management (1911)

6. The Reorganization of Work The Assembly Line

7. World’s Industrial Output

8. Ironically, labor was prevented from organizing because of the government's use of • the Interstate Commerce clause. • Jim Crow laws. • the Sherman Antitrust Act. • the Voting Rights Act.

9. America’s Richest Citizens • John Rockefeller OIL $189.6 Billion

10. 2nd Andrew Carnegie STEEL $100.5 Billion

11. 3rd Cornelius Vanderbilt Railroads $95.9 Billion

12. 4th John Jacob Astor • Real Estate • $78 Billion

13. Bill Gates: $61Billion Stephen Girard: Shipping $55 billion A.T. Stewart: CRAP, $46 Billion Weyerhaeuser: Lumber, $43 Billion Jay Gould: RR’s $42 Billion Marshall Field: Department Stores $40 Billion Sam Walton: Retail, $37 Billion Andrew Mellon: Banking, $32 Billion #23 is J.P. Morgan “The richest Man in America at $25 Billion Then the Rest

14. RAILROADS • Exponential growth • 1865 = 35,000 miles 1900 = 195,000 miles • 1869 1st continental RR joined @ Promontory Utah • 1883 4 continental RR’s w/ 10,000s of miles of connecting track.

17. 1880 1890

18. Government Gave away 200,000,000 acres To the Railroad companies (larger than Texas)

19. Making Connections!!!!Review!!!Do You Remember How this affected FARMERS • Munn v. Illinois? • Wabash v. Illinois? • Interstate Commerce Act? • Interstate Commerce Commission?

20. How Will the RR’s affect other businesses? • Oil = Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, used TRUSTS to control everything • Steel = Carnegie’s monopolizes STEEL Vertical Monopolies to Control all parts of steel production and sales • George Pullman = RR Cars, use Working Towns to control costs

21. A “CompanyTown”: Pullman, IL

22. Were they “Captains of Industry”Or “Robber Barons”? • Lowered the price of almost all goods sold. • Horribly abused their workers (Labor) • Provided hundreds of thousands of jobs • Destroyed the environment • Created new technologies • Kept 80% $ for themselves • Gave millions to charity and built universities and libraries

23. Steel Production

24. Industrial Consolidation:Iron & Steel Firms

28. By 1920, the majority of workers in American cities were • highly skilled and well paid. • women. • immigrants. • highly skilled and poorly paid

30. Is Big businessgetting TOO BIG?

32. How to slow it down?Can you?Should you? • Sherman anti-trust Act: you can’t use your monopoly to “restrain trade” between the states or other nations. • Too control or stop the free trade of goods by others???? • Very hard to define

33. “On Wealth” • The Anglo-Saxon race is superior. • “Gospel of Wealth” (1889). • Inequality is inevitable and good. • Wealthy should (might) act as “trustees” for their “poorer brethren.” Andrew Carnegie

34. Social Darwinism • Spencer: British economist. • Advocate of TRUE laissez-faire. • Darwin’s ideas from the “Origin of Species” to humans. • Notion of “Survival of the Fittest.”

35. Social Darwinism argued that human history witnessed • the inevitable evolution of the weakest groups to the positions of highest power. • a struggle among the races, with the strongest triumphing. • the evolution of humans from the ape. • the eventual disintegration of western civilization.

36. The Growth of the American Labor Movement

37. Child Labor

38. Child Labor

39. “Galley Labor”

40. Labor Unrest: 1870-1900

41. Labor Unions You Need to Know • National Labor Union: William Sylvis • Knights of Labor: Uriah Stephens. Failed because of Socialist ideas • American Federation of Labor (AF of L). Succeeded because it focused on • Work hours • Safety issues • pay

42. Labor Unions You Need to Know • American Railway Union: Eugene Debs. Succeeded because he could shut down all the trains with a strike (arrested 5 times) • International Workers of the World: Big Bill Haywood. Socialists – Arrested and beaten

43. Strikes/Riots You Need to Know • Great Strike of 1877: All the ARU (Debs) went on strike. President calls out troops to arrest them under the ICC. • Homestead: One of Carnegie’s steel plants goes on strike • Haymarket “Riot” • Pullman Strike of 1893 (The Panic of 1893 is just starting)

44. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877

45. President Grover Cleveland If it takes the entire army and navy to deliver a postal card in Chicago, that card will be delivered!

46. They Use the interstate Commerce Act to Justify this

47. Homestead Steel Strike (1892)

48. Haymarket “Riot” (1886)

49. Haymarket Martyrs

50. The Pullman Strike of 1894