CHAPTER 16 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL AMERICA 1865-1900

Chapte

r 16

The

Rise o

f Indust

rial A

mer

ica 1

865-1900

Introduction

1.) What brought about prodigious industrial growth and the rise of giant corporations in the period of 1865-1900?

2.) How did some business leaders, such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, overwhelm competitors and dominate their industries?

3.) How and why did southern industrialization patterns differ from northern ones?

4.) How did workers respond to the changes resulting form rapid industrialization and the growth of big business?

5.) In the labor-management clashes of the period, why did management almost always win?

The Rise of Corporate America

The Character of Industrial ChangeRapid industrial expansion was made possible by: using America’s vast coal deposits for cheap energy Adopting new technology

Enabled manufacturers to cut production costs Employ low-paid unskilled and semiskilled workers Ruthless competition among businesses

Lowered commodity prices Ruined weaker companies Left fewer huge corporations in control of each industry

The Character of Industrial Change

The unrelenting competition also drove business to brutally exploit labor and pollute the environment

Though prices fell: interest rates remained highcredit tight because of the failure of the money supply to keep up with the expansion of the economy

Railroad Innovations

• By 1900, the United States had more rail miles tying the country together than did all of Europe

• Building this extensive railroad system opened a vast internal market to American industry

• The railroad companies also led the way in developing accounting, financial, and managerial practices that made large-scale corporate enterprise possible

Sale of stocks and bonds to raise needed capital

• Railroad management innovations became the model for other businesses trying to sell products in a national market

Consolidating the Railroad Industry

A group of innovative railroad entrepreneurs bought out their smaller competitors one by oneCollis P. Huntington

Central Pacific Railroad Jay Gould

Financier, developer, speculator James J. Hill

Great Northern Railway

These integrated lines carried goods all over the country efficientlyStandardized equipment and track gauge


However, the railroad companies abused their powers Bribed politicians

Free passes and other favors Gave rebates and kickbacks to big shippers Overcharged small businesses and farmers

Small shippers demanded legislation to stop the unfair practices

In the 1870’s, many Midwestern states outlawed rate discrimination

These laws were ruled unconstitutional when the Supreme Court said states could not regulate interstate commerce


Interstate Commerce Act Passed Congress in 1887 Forbade pools, rebated, and other monopolistic practices Established the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

Investigate complaints and unreasonable rates Interstate Commerce Act short summary

The Interstate Commerce Act was ineffective for several reasons:

Federal courts decisions almost always sided with the railroads ICC’s lack of power to set railroad rates Presidents appointing pro-railroad commissioners


In the early 20th century, under the guidance of investment bankers railroad consolidation proceeded still further J.P. Morgan

By 1906, 7 giant corporations controlled 2/3’s of all the track

Applying the Lessons of the Railroads to Steel

Andrew Carnegie’s career illustrates the close connection between railroad expansion and the growth of heavy industry


• Carnegie’s best customers were the railroad companies

• From his early experiences working in the railroad industry, he learned the organizational, accounting, and managerial innovations that he later applied to his steel business

• He also copied the railroad practice of consolidating small enterprises into fewer and fewer huge companies

• Carnegie integrated his business both vertically and horizontally


U.S. Steel 1901 Carnegie Steel and J.P. Morgan’s Federal Steel combined The world’s first corporation capitalized over $1 billion Contained 200 member companies

By 1900, the consolidation process that had placed the railroad and steel businesses in the hands of a few corporate giants had also taken place in oil, sugar, meatpacking, and many other industries

The Trust: Creating New Forms of Corporate Organization

Standard Oil Company John D. Rockefeller Oil-refining Adopted the latest technology Made deals with the railroads to

get special shipping discounts Engaged in deception and

aggression to ruin competitors Created the 1st trust and later

holding company to extinguish all competition in oil refining

Hard Work and the Gospel of Success Newspapers and magazines preached the gospel that, for male workers,

America was the land of opportunity and hard work led to success The papers were filled with rags-to-riches stories

Poor immigrant boys who rose to become heads of major corporations (Andrew Carnegie) In fact, Carnegie was the exception

95% of executives of big corporations came from middle-and upper-class families

There was some opportunity for skilled workers to move into ownership and management of small businesses

For unskilled immigrant workers there was less mobility At best they moved from unskilled to semiskilled or skilled industrial

jobs; they remained in the working class

Hard Work and the Gospel of Success

• A huge gulf existed between the rich and poor• By 1890, America’s richest families (top

10%) owned 73% of the country’s wealth

• At the other extreme, more than 50% of all industrial laborers earned incomes that placed them below the poverty line

The Trust: Creating New Forms of Corporate OrganizationThe growth of trusts, oligopolies, and

monopolies in one industry after another led to public pressure for govt. intervention

In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act

Outlawed all contracts and combinations that were in restraint of trade in interstate commerce

Sherman Anti-Trust Act

The Trust: Creating New Forms of Corporate Organization

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was ineffective in stopping the growth of trusts:

Vaguely wordedPresidents rarely brought suits against companies under it

Supreme Court in the E.C. Knight case (1895) interpreted the meaning of interstate commerce so narrowly as to prevent the law’s use against manufacturing corporations PBS summary E. C. Knight case short summary

Large-scale consolidations in industry accelerated after the E.C. Knight case

Stimulating Economic Growth

The Triumph of Technology The invention and patenting of new

machines in the period 1860-1900 also brought about the growth of huge corporations Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of

the telephone in 1876 gave rise to Bell Telephone

By 1900 had installed some 800,000 phones

The Triumph of Technology

Thomas Edison Menlo Park Perfected the light bulb (Edison

Electric) Invented the phonograph,

microphone, motion-picture camera and over thousands of other items

Bell and Edison proved that new inventions could be the foundation of profitable big business

Specialized Production

Manufactures of specialized products also greatly expanded their output between 1865 and 1900

LocomotivesFurnitureWomen’s clothingNot necessarily done in huge

factories though

Advertising and Marketing

Aggressive advertising and marketing were effective in expanding sales and beating out competitors in the late 19th century

Procter and GambleAmerican TobaccoEastman-Kodak

Economic Growth: Cost and Benefits

By 1900 the chaos of thousands of small companies competing for the national market had been replaced by an economy dominated by a small number of enormous corporations offering a large array of new products

The price of these accomplishments was the crushing of thousands of small-and medium-sized business, the exploitation of millions of workers, and the polluting of the environment

Factories and the Work Force

From Workshop to Factory The number of industrial workers in the United States climbed

from 885,000 to 3.2 million by 1900 The trend toward large-scale, increasingly mechanized

production accelerated the nature of work changed markedly

Fewer artisans Remaining skilled workers had less control over their work and

derived less satisfaction from it Factories hired more low-skilled, low-paid women and children Jobs became simple, machine-paced, repetitive, and boring

The Hardships of Industrial Labor

• Already by the 1880’s, almost 1/3 of the labor force in steel and railroad industries were unskilled workers

• Common laborers drifted from city to city and from industry to industry• Worked for wages that were 1/3 of those paid to skilled artisans

• In the expanding factories and on railroads, workers were exposed to a variety of industrially induced diseases• Black lung (exposure to coal dust)• Brown lung (inhaling cotton dust)

• They also had horrible accidents

• Employers rarely paid compensation to injured workers and opposed passage of state health and safety codes

Immigrant Labor• More and more, immigrants filled the least skilled, lowest-

paid, dirtiest, and most dangerous jobs in the expanding mines, factories, and railroads

• Impoverished French Canadians crossed the border to work in the New England textile mills

• Chinese constructed railroads and mined ore in the West• If immigrant workers stayed healthy, they often lived

better than they had in their homelands

• Most of the immigrants worked very hard

• Most did not adjust easily to the fast pace and monotony of factory work or to the rigid discipline management tried to impose on them

Women and Work in Industrial America

Since women could be paid even less than men and could do unskilled industrial jobs just as well, management hired more and more women

Married, working-class women and their children often spent hours finishing garments, rolling cigars, and performing other labor for manufacturers in their tenement apartments


• Young, single women readily took jobs in factories because they preferred them to domestic service

• Almost the only alternative for uneducated females

• Immigrant parents regularly sent their daughters into the mills and factories to supplement inadequate family incomes

• By 1900, women made up 17% of the labor force


In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, women also began to obtain clerical positions

Office work paid better and offered more prestige than factory jobs But women clerical workers had almost no chance of moving up to managerial positions

Despite the increase in female wage earners, women’s work outside the home was viewed as temporary

A women’s career was that of housewife and mother

Labor Unions and Industrial Conflict

Organizing the WorkersIn response to the unfavorable changes that rapid industrialization was forcing on them, workers turned to labor unions

National Labor Union1866Formed by William H. SylvisSeveral tradesDeclined in membership in 1870’s

Organizing the Workers

Knights of LaborTerrence V. Powderly 1870’sAdvance social and economic reforms:Equal pay for men and womenAbolition of child labor Inclusion of black workers in unionsA graduated income taxCooperative ownership of factories, mines, and other businesses

Organizing the Workers

• Despite their egalitarian ideals, the Knights and other labor groups favored immigration restriction

• Labor opposition to the Chinese, whom they accused of working so cheaply that they undercut native-born workers, was especially strong

• The federal govt. responded to anti-Chinese sentiment by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Organizing the Workers (cont.)

• When the Knights won a series of strikes in the 1880’s, workers rushed to join, swelling its membership to 700,000

• In the late 1880’s, the Knights suffered setbacks:

It lost several big strikes Its craft unions broke away to form the American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Its membership declined

Strikes and Labor Violence

• Between 1881 and 1905 almost 37,000 strikes took place•Nearly 7 million workers•Violence erupted as strikers attacked employers’ property and the scab laborers


Some of the biggest and most violent confrontations were:

The railroad strikes of 1877 The eight-hour strikes of 1886

8 hour strike The Haymarket Square bombing (for which 4 anarchists were

unjustly convicted and executed) Chicago History

The Homestead steel strike PBS Homestead Strike

The Pullman strike Chicago History


To combat labor unrest, employers forced workers to sign yellow-dog contracts and hired their own private police forces

Because of the violence, the public regarded strikers as dangerous radicals

The federal govt. intervened repeatedly on the side of management

Used the army to quell disturbancesUsed injunctions to order union members back to work


•When injunctions were disobeyed, union officers like Eugene Debs (the leader of the Pullman strike) were thrown in jail•As a result of employer, public, and govt. hostility, strikes almost always failed and unions weakened

Social Thinkers Probe for Alternatives The growing extremes of poverty and wealth and the

violent clashes between labor and management troubled middle-class Americans

A number of social commentators tried to explain these developments and put forward their own solutions

Social Darwinists Believed that labor’s misery was an inevitable product of

the constant struggle for survival that weeded out all but the fittest

They opposed any govt. interference with the workings of these natural laws

Andrew Carnegie William Graham Sumner

Social Thinkers Probe for Alternatives

• Others attributed the social problems to a human-made economic system that placed private property and unrestricted profit seeking above all else

• They called for govt. regulation, tax reform and a cooperative commonwealth• Lester F. Ward• Henry George• Edward Bellamy

• Tiny socialist and anarchist groups preached that only the overthrow of the capitalist and the govt. that protected them would make possible a just and humane society

ConclusionIndustrialization had brought great benefits to America: International power status Lower-cost goods More jobs A tremendous array of new consumer products

But the price had been high: Shoddy business practices Polluted factory sites Urban slums Poverty for the workers

Exploited laborers periodically vented their rage and frustrations in violent outbursts and strikes

Middle-class Americans were ambivalent about the new industrial order They wanted to keep the benefits but somehow alleviate the accompanying social

evils

Documents

CHAPTER 16 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL AMERICA 1865-1900