Chapter 19

The Growth of Industry

Railroads Lead the Way

• The first Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869.

• The fast-growing national rail system encouraged the expansion/growth of the ________

• Economy• This railroad expansion also influenced

consolidation, which was the practice of combining separate companies, in the industry

Improving the Railroads• Because of the growth in railroads trains

would build their tracks differently so that only one specific companies train could use that track

• Railroad companies would compete with each other for customers

Inventions

• Thomas Alva Edison – received over 1,000 patents in his lifetime

• Wilbur Wright – He was the first to fly in an engine powered plane

• Alexander Graham Bell – Invented the telephone

• Henry Ford – Pioneered the assembly line, he the Ford Model T

Inventions 1852-1899• Elish Otis – Elevator Break• Henry Bessemer – Bessemer Process• George Pullman – Rail Sleeping Car• Thaddeus Lowe – Ice Machine• George Westinghouse – Air Break• Stephen Dudley Field – Electric Streetcar• Alexander Graham Bell – Telephone• Thomas Alva Edison – Incandescent Lightbulb• James Ritty – Cash Register• Lewis Howad Latimer – Improved Lightbulb Filament• Jan E. Matzeliger – Shoemaking Machine• Sarah E Goode – Folding Cabinet Bed• Granville T. Woods – Automatic Air Break• Charles and J. Frank Duryea – Gasoline-Powered Car• John Thurman – Vaccum Cleaner

http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/science/flash.html

The Age of BIG BUSINESS

• Railroads were the FIRST business to form corporations, or incorporate – soon manufacturing firms and other businesses would join

• Andrew Carnegie – Was a large steel company owner as well as a philanthropist who built more than 2,000 libraries

The Age of BIG BUSINESS cont…

• Monopoly – Total control of an industry – Example – John D. Rockefeller did this by

owning the stock and right to ALL oil companies

• Robber Baron – A wealthy owner of a large corporation that people did not like

Industrial Workers • Factories and mines were unhealthy, noisy

and unsafe places to work– However, men – women and children worked

in these places.

• Because of these conditions unions would start to form– What is a union?

Unions• Unions were dissatisfied workers who

organized into groups to demand– Better pay– Safer conditions

• Some unions were formed based on the skills of certain workers these were called Trade Unions. – People in certain crafts or trades

• Example – carpentry

Unions cont…

• The Knights of Labor – met secretly because their employer would fire those who joined unions.

• The American Federation of Labor – represents skilled workers in a variety of crafts.

• International Ladies’ Garment Workers – was formed because of the Triangle Shirt-waist Company fire in 1911

The Unions Act• Slight economic depression in the 1870’s and

1890’s led companies to lower wages and fire workers.

• Unions responded with large strikes and sometimes violence– The Haymarket Riot of 1886 would leave 11 dead– Striking workers from McCormick Harvester Company

gathered to protest the killing of four strikers from the previous day

– The police ordered the crowd to break up and someone threw a bomb killing seven policemen.