Industry Comes Of Age

Chapter 24

1865-1900

Railroads 1865 – only 35,000 miles of rail, with

most of the track lying east of the Mississippi River

1900 – 192,556 miles of rail, with most of the track lying west of the Mississippi River

Congress began to advance loans to 2 companies to build a transcontinental railroad

Frontier villages became cities if a railroad was placed nearby

Union Pacific Railroad

Commissioned by Congress to push westward from Omaha, Nebraska

Central Pacific Railroad

Commissioned by Congress to push eastward from Sacramento, California

They had to push over the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Big Four

There were four chief financial brokers of the transcontinental railroad

Two included: Leland Stanford of California – had

huge political connections Collis P. Huntington – an adept lobbyist Railroads made a profit of $105 million

Chinese Workers

10,000 Chinese workers poured into the Western United States

Cheap, efficient, and expendable

Hundreds died from explosions while trying to clear the path for the railroad

Promontory Point, Utah

In 1869, the 2 lines finally met up just outside of Ogden, UT

Union Pacific – laid 1,086 miles of track

Central Pacific – laid 689 miles of track

Steel The need for this metal increased

because it was safer for railroads to travel on steel tracks

It was more economical and steel could carry a heavier load

Bessemer Process – 1850s – making cheaper steel by blowing cold air on red-hot iron, making the metal white-hot igniting the carbon and eliminating impurities

RR Improvements

Standard gauge – universal width of railroad tracks came about after Civil War

Westinghouse air brake – 1870s more efficient and much safer

Pullman Palace Cars – advertised as “gorgeous traveling hotels”

Corruption

This is still the Gilded Age, and corruption lingers in all aspects of life.

If you can make money at it, it was probably corrupt

$ = corruption Credit Mobilier & Jay Gould Stock watering – RR stocks were

grossly inflated, and then stocks were sold

Andrew Carnegie Kingpin of steel makers Scottish; hard-worker Eliminated middle-men Not a monopolist 1900 – made $25 M in

profit alone No income tax, so he

was a real millionaire

J. Pierpont Morgan

JP Morgan was a legendary Wall Street banker

RR, insurance companies, and banks

Morgan and Carnegie By 1900, Carnegie was eager to sell his

holdings in steel Morgan invested into steel pipe

production, and wanted to own more steel

Morgan agreed to buy Carnegie out for $400 million

Carnegie spent the rest of his life giving away money to libraries, universities, and philanthropies

JP Morgan

Controlled United States Steel Corporation

Capitalized at $1.4 Billion US Steel was the United States’ first

billion dollar corporation

John D. Rockefeller

Lanky, shrewd, ambitious, abstemious (didn’t drink, curse, or smoke)

Came to dominate the oil industry

1870 Standard Oil Company of Ohio

Oil – kerosene and gasoline

Rockefeller and Standard Oil

Controlled 95% of all oil refineries in the United States

Eliminated middle-men, and created an oil monopoly

Became one of the richest “robber-barons” in US history

America Moves to the City

Chapter 25

1865-1900

Population

1870 – 40 million people in US 1900 – 80 million people in US The lure of industrial jobs brought

people to the city Rural people began to move to Urban

areas in search of a better job, and better way of life

Urban Frontier

1860 – no city with 1,000,000 people 1890 – NYC, Chicago, and Philadelphia

all had 1,000,000 people 1900 – NYC had over 3.5 million people NYC became the 2nd largest city in the

world to London, England

The Skyscraper

Cities grow up and out Louis Sullivan, a

Chicago architect, built the 1st 10 floor building

“form follows function” The electric elevator

perfected the skyscraper

Commuting

Americans became commuter to and from work

Electric trolleys expanded the reach of the average citizen

Different districts for business, industry, and residences emerged

Residential districts were segregated by race and class

Technology

City lights, electricity, indoor plumbing, and telephones all added to the luxury of city life

1900 – 1 million telephones in use

Waste Country – very little waste City – produced much more trash Waste disposal – new issue to the

urban age Criminals flourished in the city Impure water, uncollected garbage,

unwashed bodies, droppings from animals, HORRIBLE STENCH

“the best and the worst combined”

SLUMS Worst conditions were

called slums Foul, crowded, filthy,

rat-infested 1879 – dumbbell

tenement – 7-8 stories, multiple families, shallow, sunless, ill-smelling, no ventilation, shared hallway toilets

Slums

Flophouse – poor could stay on poor mattresses for a few cents a night

The wealthy left the city altogether, and moved to the suburb

New Immigration

1880s – over 5 million immigrants came to the US (avg. 2,100/day)

Before, most had been from British Isles, W. Europe, Germany, and Scandinavia

They were Anglo-Saxon, some Irish-Catholic, Catholic Germans

1880s – immigrant stream changed

New Immigration Immigrants began to

come from S. and E. Europe

Italians, Croats, Slovaks, Greeks, Poles

With Orthodox churches, synagogues,

From countries with little or no democracy

Europe

Had no room for its people because: Old World was growing vigorously Fish and grain from New World helped

Old World population Potato changed Europe Created an Army of unemployed in

Europe

“America Fever” USA was painted as a land of fabulous

opportunity, freedom from conscription, and no religious persecution

Industry needed people to work for low wages

States needed people for #s Steamships needed paying freight 1880s – Russians turned violently on

their Jews

Birds Of Passage

Many were migrant workers who came to the US to work for months for American $$$ and returned home to Europe with their earnings

Social Conscience

Clergy brings Christianity to the slums and factories

Washington Gladden – Congregationalist from OH that predicted socialism would be the logical outcome of Christianity

Jane Addams – Hull House From a wealthy Illinois family 1st generation of college

educated women 1889 opened Hull House in

Chicago Urban settlement house Condemned war and poverty Offered instruction in English,

counseling, and child-care

Nativism

Viewed the Eastern and Southern Europeans as inferior

Blamed them for degradation of govt., working for low wages, importing socialism, communism, and anarchy

Anglo-Saxons worried they would be outbred and outvoted

American Protective Association (APA)

1887 1 million members Urged voting against Catholic

candidates Very anti-Catholic

Organized labor was nativist because of the language barrier

Chinese Exclusion Act - 1882

1st restrictive immigration laws keeping a race totally out of the US

This law barred all Chinese from entering the US for 10 years

Undesirables

People who were forbidden grew to include: the insane, polygamists, prostitutes, alcoholics, anarchists, and diseased people

1886 – Statue of Liberty was given by France to celebrate America’s open arms to immigrants

Nativists hated the idea

Religion

Urban cities posed challenges for American churches

Protestants, in particular, had many doctrines and teachings that were irrelevant in urban cities

Church became a sacred diversion, or amusement for some

Religion

John D. Rockefeller – pillar of Baptist Church

J.P. Morgan – pillar of the Episcopal Church

Materialism prevailed – worshipped money as achievement

“God causes the righteous to prosper”

Dwight Lyman Moody

Chicago shoe salesman turned preacher, evangelist

Country boy preaching the gospel of kindness and forgiveness in the city

Spellbinding sermons Moody Bible Institute -

1889

Religion

Roman Catholic and Jewish faith was growing in the city

Strength came from New Immigrants 1900 – Catholics largest single

denomination in the US

Cardinal Gibbons

Urban Catholic leader devoted to American unity

Immensely popular with Catholics and Protestants

Knew every president from Johnson to Harding

(like a Billy Graham)

Religion

1890 – 150 different religious denominations

Salvation Army – soldiers without swords – est. in England in 1879

Charles Darwin On The Origin of Species 1859 English naturalist Theory that humans

evolved slowly from lower forms of life

“the survival of the fittest” Evolution cast doubt on the

literal interpretation of the Bible

Evolution

Fundamentalists – believed in God’s creation of the earth in 6 days

Modernists – flatly refused to accept Bible as science or history

Teachers of biology who embraced evolution were removed from their post

Education

Tax supported elementary schools began b4 Civil War

Free government can’t exist in a country of ignorance

1870 – most states mandated grade-school attendance

High Schools

High Schools began to spread in the 1880s and 1890s

Before the war, private academies were the only high schools

Tax supported high schools were rare

1900 – 6,000 HS w/ free texts supported by tax $

Normal College

Teacher training expanded in the late 19th century

1910 – 300 Normal Schools

Southwest Texas State started as a normal school

Education

Kindergartens – borrowed from Germany

Strength of Catholic parochial schools grew

1870 – 20% of US was illiterate 1900 – 10.7% of US was illiterate

African Americans

Suffered most because of lack of education opportunity

44% of non-whites were illiterate in 1900

Booker T. Washington

Ex-slave who saved pennies to pay for his schooling

1881 – became head of the black normal & industrial school @ Tuskegee, Alabama

Self-help advocate

Booker T. Washington

“accomodationist” – Washington stopped just short of challenging white supremacy

B.T.W. – avoided the issue of social equality – focused on development of education

Economic independence would lead to political and civil rights, he believed

George Washington Carver

Joined the faculty at Tuskegee Institute in 1896

Famous agricultural chemist

Used peanut for shampoo, axle grease, peanut butter

W.E.B. Du Bois

Born in Mass. Mix of African,

Dutch, and Indian “Thank God, no

Anglo-Saxon,” he said

1st black to earn Ph.D. from Harvard

Du Bois

Very arrogant (“The honor, I assure you, was all Harvard’s”)

Demanded complete equality for blacks, social and economic

Du Bois called Washington and “Uncle Tom” Helped to found the NAACP in 1910 Historian, sociologist, and poet Died in exile in Africa at age 95 in 1963

Black Colleges

Howard University in D.C

Hampton Institute in Virginia

Atlanta University Made college

possible for blacks

Morrill Act (1862)

Provided generous grant of public land to the states for support of education

“Land grant colleges”

Most became state universities

Hatch Act (1887)

Provided federal funds for the establishment of agricultural experiment stations in connection with land grant universities

Private Endowments

Private philanthropies also richly supplemented federal funds

Industrial millionaires gave tremendous amounts of money

1878-1898 – money barons gave away $150 million to schools alone

Private schools – Cornell (1865) Leland Stanford Junior (1891) Univ. of Chicago (1892)

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, MD 1876 1st high grade

graduate school in US

Dr. Woodrow Wilson Ph.D. from JHU

Health

Louis Pasteur – pasteurization process Joseph Lister – word Listerine, bacteria

killing formula Popularity of heavy beards end – “germ

traps” Campaigns against public spitting Life expectancy went up

Press

Linotype – 1885 Sensationalism – sex, scandal, human

interest Joseph Pulitzer William Randolph Hearst Yellow journalism – prostituted the

press in lies and exaggeration to increase circulation

Literature

Dime Novels – Harlan F. Halsey wrote 650 novels

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson – famous American poets

Mark Twain – Samuel Longhorne Clemens “two fathoms”

1907 – Twain receives honorary Ph.D. from Oxford

Wrote using common western language

Victoria Woodhull

1871 Belief in free love Beautiful and

elegant divorcee 1st woman candidate

for president (1872) Equal Rights Party Puritans resisted her

“immoral beliefs”

Wyoming Territory

“Equality State” Granted 1st

unrestricted suffrage to women in 1869

Other states slowly followed

1890 – most states allowed women to control property after marriage

Amusement

Vaudeville – course jokes and graceful acrobats (1880s-1890s)

Circus – Phineas T. Barnum and James A. Bailey open “The Greatest Show on Earth”

Wild West Shows – Buffalo Bill Cody with Indians, buffalo, and gunmen

Baseball – 1st pro team 1869 (Cincinnati Red Stockings) emerges as national pastime

1888 – all-star team tours the world