The American Pageant Chapter 24 Industry Comes of Age, 1865-1900 Cover Slide Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved

The American Pageant

Chapter 24

Industry Comes of Age, 1865-1900

Cover Slide

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Child worker, glass factory

Child labor was common in the factories of 19th century America. (Library of Congress)

Child worker, glass factory


Children in textile millsMuch of the new southern textile industry was based on child labor. These children were photographed by Lewis Hines in 1908. (National Archives/ Lewis Hines)

Children in textile mills


Dangerous conditions at the Meadville, Pennsylvania Steel CompanySteel became a vital component of American industrialization in the late nineteenth century, both as a product itself and as a material necessary for countless new machines. Steel mills--such as this one in Meadville, Pennsylvania--employed large work forces in ever more expansive, and dangerous, settings. (Library of Congress)

Dangerous conditions at the Meadville, Pennsylvania Steel Company


Edison Lab at Menlo ParkAlways a self-promoter, Edison used this depiction of his "invention factory" to suggest that his development of a durable light bulb in 1879 would have an impact on life around the globe. (Departrment of the Interior, National Park Service, Edison National Historic Site)

Edison Lab at Menlo Park


Edison with phonograph labThomas Edison, the most prolific inventor of the post-Civil War era, and his invention "factories" patented hundreds of creations, including the phonograph, the light bulb, and the motion picture. He had enormous appeal for Americans, not only because he gave them incredible new devices, but because he proved that the power of individual genius still had significance in the age of the corporation. (Library of Congress)

Edison with phonograph lab


Funeral of President Lincoln, New York, April 25, 1865 by Currier & IvesThe death of President Lincoln caused a vast outpouring of grief in the North. As this Currier and Ives print shows, his funeral train stopped at several cities on its way to Illinois to allow local services to be held. (Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, John Hay Library, Brown University)

Funeral of President Lincoln, New York, April 25, 1865 by Currier & Ives


Genuine Connellsville Coke

Coke is a vital ingredient in the manufacturing of iron. (Library of Congress)

Genuine Connellsville Coke


Knights of LaborBlack delegate Frank J. Farrell introduces Terence V. Powderly, head of the Knights of Labor, at the organization's 1886 convention. The Knights were unusual in accepting both black and female workers. (Library of Congress)

Knights of Labor


Management and LaborThis cartoon, from Puck, April 7, 1886, shows Terence Powderly, in the center, advocating the position of the Knights of Labor on arbitration. The Knights urged that labor and management (identified here as "capital") should settle their differences this way, rather than by striking. Note how the cartoonist has depicted labor and management as of equal size, and given both of them a large weapon; management's club is labeled "monopoly" and labor's hammer is called "strikes." In fact, labor and management were rarely equally matched when it came to labor disputes in the late nineteenth century. (Puck, April 7, 1886)

Management and Labor


Standard Oil MonopolyBelieving that Rockefeller's Standard Oil monopoly was exercising dangerous power, this political cartoonist depicts the trust as a greedy octopus whose sprawling tentacles already ensnare Congress, state legislatures, and the taxpayer, and are reaching for the White House. (Library of Congress)

Standard Oil Monopoly


The Manufacture of Iron

Manufacturing iron was a hot and strenous process, requiring workers to spend longs hours stoking hot blast furnaces. (Library of Congress)

The Manufacture of Iron


Thomas EdisonThis photograph from 1893 shows Thomas A. Edison in his laboratory, the world's leading research facility when it opened in 1876. By creating research teams, the Edison laboratories could pursue several projects at once. They developed a dazzling stream of new products, most based on electrical power. (Library of Congress)

Thomas Edison


Women telephone workers, Roanoke, VirginiaAs this telephone office in Roanoke, Virginia, reveals, women office employees usually worked under the direct supervision of male managers. (Library of Congress)

Women telephone workers, Roanoke, Virginia


Map: Expansion of Agriculture, 1860-1900

Expansion of Agriculture, 1860-1900The amount of improved farmland more than doubled during these forty years. This map shows how agricultural expansion came in two ways--first, western lands were brought under cultivation; second, in other areas, especially the Midwest, land was cultivated much more intensely than before.


Map: Industrial Production, 1919

Industrial Production, 1919By the early twentieth century, each state could boast of at least one kind of industrial production. Although the value of goods produced was still highest in the Northeast, states like Minnesota and California had impressive dollar values of outputs.


Map: Transcontinental Railroads and Federal Land Grants, 1850-1900

Transcontinental Railroads and Federal Land Grants, 1850-1900Despite the laissez-faire ideology that argued against government interference in business, Congress heavily subsidized American railroads and gave them millions of acres of land. As illustrated in the box, belts of land were reserved on either side of a railroad's right of way. Until the railroad claimed the exact one-mile-square sections it chose to possess, all such sections within the belt remained closed to settlement.


First Recorded Promotional Message on the Phonograph(1906. Great Speeches of the 20th Century, Rhino Records, Los Angeles, CA, 1991.)

Audio: First Recorded Promotional Message on the Phonograph


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The American Pageant Chapter 24 Industry Comes of Age, 1865-1900 Cover Slide Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved