Terms & NamesTerms & NamesMAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

One American's Story

•Edwin L. Drake•Bessemerprocess

•Thomas AlvaEdison

•ChristopherSholes

•AlexanderGraham Bell

At the end of the 19thcentury, natural resources,creative ideas, and growingmarkets fueled an industrialboom.

Technological developments ofthe late 19th century paved theway for the continued growth ofAmerican industry.

WHY IT MATTERS NOWWHY IT MATTERS NOW

The Expansion of Industry

230 CHAPTER 6

One day, Pattillo Higgins noticed bubbles in the springs aroundSpindletop, a hill near Beaumont in southeastern Texas. This andother signs convinced him that oil was underground. If Higginsfound oil, it could serve as a fuel source around which a vibrantindustrial city would develop.

Higgins, who had been a mechanic and a lumber mer-chant, couldn’t convince geologists or investors that oil waspresent, but he didn’t give up. A magazine ad seekinginvestors got one response—from Captain Anthony F. Lucas,an experienced prospector who also believed that there was oilat Spindletop. When other investors were slow to send money,Higgins kept his faith, not only in Spindletop, but in Lucas.

A PERSONAL VOICE PATTILLO HIGGINS

“ Captain Lucas, . . . these experts come and tell you this or thatcan’t happen because it has never happened before. You believethere is oil here, . . . and I think you are right. I know there is oilhere in greater quantities than man has ever found before.”

—quoted in Spindletop

In 1900, the two men found investors, and they began to drill thatautumn. After months of difficult, frustrating work, on the morning ofJanuary 10, 1901, oil gushed from their well. The Texas oil boom had begun.

Natural Resources Fuel IndustrializationAfter the Civil War, the United States was still largely an agricultural nation. Bythe 1920s—a mere 60 years later—it had become the leading industrial power inthe world. This immense industrial boom was due to several factors, including: awealth of natural resources, government support for business, and a growingurban population that provided both cheap labor and markets for new products.

GUSHER!Pattillo Higginsand the GreatTexas Oil Boom

BLACK GOLD Though eastern Native American tribes had made fuel and medi-cine from crude oil long before Europeans arrived on the continent, earlyAmerican settlers had little use for oil. In the 1840s, Americans began usingkerosene to light lamps after the Canadian geologist Abraham Gesner discoveredhow to distill the fuel from oil or coal.

It wasn’t until 1859, however, when Edwin L. Drake successfully used asteam engine to drill for oil near Titusville, Pennsylvania, that removing oil frombeneath the earth’s surface became practical. This breakthrough started an oilboom that spread to Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and, later, Texas.Petroleum-refining industries arose in Cleveland and Pittsburgh as entrepreneursrushed to transform the oil into kerosene. Gasoline, a byproduct of the refiningprocess, originally was thrown away. But after the automobile became popular,gasoline became the most important form of oil.

BESSEMER STEEL PROCESS Oil was not the only natural resource that wasplentiful in the United States. There were also abundant deposits of coal and iron.In 1887, prospectors discovered iron ore deposits more than 100 miles long andup to 3 miles wide in the Mesabi Range of Minnesota. At the same time, coal pro-duction skyrocketed—from 33 million tons in 1870 to more than 250 milliontons in 1900.

Iron is a dense metal, but it is soft and tends to break and rust. It also usuallycontains other elements, such as carbon. Removing the carbon from iron pro-duces a lighter, more flexible, and rust-resistant metal—steel. The raw materialsneeded to make steel were readily available; all that was needed was a cheap andefficient manufacturing process. The Bessemer process, developed indepen-dently by the British manufacturer Henry Bessemer and American ironmakerWilliam Kelly around 1850, soon became widely used. This technique involvedinjecting air into molten iron to remove the carbon and other impurities. By1880, American manufacturers were using the new method to produce more than90 percent of the nation’s steel. In this age of rapid change and innovation, even

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Natural Resources and the Birth of a Steel Town, 1886–1906

GEOGRAPHY SKILLBUILDER1. Region Which state had the most steel-producing areas?2. Human-Environment Interaction What connection can you

draw between natural resources (including water) and steelproduction in Pittsburgh?

Vocabularyentrepreneur:a person whoorganizes,operates, andassumes the riskfor a businessventure

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the successful Bessemer process was bettered by the 1860s. Itwas eventually replaced by the open-hearth process,enabling manufacturers to produce quality steel from scrapmetal as well as from raw materials.

NEW USES FOR STEEL The railroads, with thousands ofmiles of track, became the biggest customers for steel, butinventors soon found additional uses for it. JosephGlidden’s barbed wire and McCormick’s and Deere’s farmmachines helped transform the plains into the food pro-ducer of the nation.

Steel changed the face of the nation as well, as it madeinnovative construction possible. One of the most remark-able structures was the Brooklyn Bridge. Completed in1883, it spanned 1,595 feet of the East River in New YorkCity. Its steel cables were supported by towers higher thanany man-made and weight-bearing structure except thepyramids of Egypt. Like those ancient marvels, the com-pleted bridge was called a wonder of the world.

Around this time, setting the stage for a new era ofexpansion upward as well as outward, William Le BaronJenney designed the first skyscraper with a steel frame—theHome Insurance Building in Chicago. Before Jenney had hispioneering idea, the weight of large buildings was support-ed entirely by their walls or by iron frames, which limitedthe buildings’ height. With a steel frame to support theweight, however, architects could build as high as theywanted. As structures soared into the air, not even the skyseemed to limit what Americans could achieve.

Inventions Promote ChangeBy capitalizing on natural resources and their own ingenuity,inventors changed more than the landscape. Their inven-tions affected the very way people lived and worked.

THE POWER OF ELECTRICITY In 1876, Thomas Alva Edison became a pio-neer on the new industrial frontier when he established the world’s first researchlaboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. There Edison perfected the incandescentlight bulb—patented in 1880—and later invented an entire system for producingand distributing electrical power. Another inventor, George Westinghouse, alongwith Edison, added innovations that made electricity safer and less expensive.

The harnessing of electricity completely changed the nature of business inAmerica. By 1890, electric power ran numerous machines, from fans to printingpresses. This inexpensive, convenient source of energy soon became available inhomes and spurred the invention of time-saving appliances. Electric streetcars madeurban travel cheap and efficient and also promoted the outward spread of cities.

More important, electricity allowed manufacturers to locate their plants

232 CHAPTER 6

RadioLight BulbPhonograph

TelephoneMotion PicturesX-Ray

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MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

ASummarizing

What naturalresources weremost important forindustrialization?

Vocabularyincandescent:giving off visiblelight as a result ofbeing heated

The Technological Explosion, 1826–1903

ILLUMINATING THELIGHT BULB

Shortly after moving into a longwooden shed at Menlo Park,Thomas Alva Edison and hisassociates set to work to developthe perfect incandescent bulb.Arc lamps already lit some citystreets and shops, using an elec-tric current passing between twosticks of carbon, but they wereglaring and inefficient.

Edison hoped to create a long-lasting lamp with a soft glow, andbegan searching for a filamentthat would burn slowly and staylit. Edison tried wires, sticks,blades of grass, and even hairsfrom his assistants’ beards.Finally, a piece of carbonizedbamboo from Japan did the trick.Edison’s company used bamboofilaments until 1911, when itbegan using tungsten filaments,which are still used today.

SPOTLIGHTSPOTLIGHTHISTORICALHISTORICAL

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wherever they wanted—not just near sources of power, such as rivers. Thisenabled industry to grow as never before. Huge operations, such as the Armourand Swift meatpacking plants, and the efficient processes that they used becamethe models for new consumer industries.

INVENTIONS CHANGE LIFESTYLES Edison’slight bulb was only one of several revolutionaryinventions. Christopher Sholes invented thetypewriter in 1867 and changed the world ofwork. Next to the light bulb, however, perhapsthe most dramatic invention was the telephone,unveiled by Alexander Graham Bell andThomas Watson in 1876. It opened the way fora worldwide communications network.

The typewriter and the telephone particu-larly affected office work and created new jobsfor women. Although women made up lessthan 5 percent of all office workers in 1870, by1910 they accounted for nearly 40 percent ofthe clerical work force. New inventions also hada tremendous impact on factory work, as well ason jobs that traditionally had been done athome. For example, women had previouslysewn clothing by hand for their families. Withindustrialization, clothing could be mass-pro-duced in factories, creating a need for garmentworkers, many of whom were women.

Industrialization freed some factory work-ers from backbreaking labor and helpedimprove workers’ standard of living. By 1890, the average workweek had beenreduced by about ten hours. However, many laborers felt that the mechanizationof so many tasks reduced human workers’ worth. As consumers, though, workersregained some of their lost power in the marketplace. The country’s expandingurban population provided a vast potential market for the new inventions andproducts of the late 1800s.

A New Industrial Age 233

MAIN IDEA2. TAKING NOTES

In a chart like the one below, listresources, ideas, and markets thataffected the industrial boom of the19th century. In the second column,note how each item contributed toindustrialization.

CRITICAL THINKING3. MAKING INFERENCES

Do you think that consumers gainedpower as industry expanded in thelate 19th century? Why or why not?

4. HYPOTHESIZINGIf the U.S. had been poor in natural resources, how wouldindustrialization have beenaffected?

5. ANALYZING EFFECTSWhich invention or developmentdescribed in this section had thegreatest impact on society? Justifyyour choice. Think About:

• the applications of inventions• the impact of inventions on

people’s daily lives• the effect of inventions on

the workplace

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The typewritershown here datesfrom around1890.

Resources, ImpactIdeas, Markets

B

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

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AnalyzingEffects

How didelectricity changeAmerican life?

• Edwin L. Drake• Bessemer process

• Thomas Alva Edison• Christopher Sholes

• Alexander Graham Bell

1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its significance.

234 CHAPTER 6

GEOGRAPHY

SPOTLIGHT

Industry Changes theEnvironment

By the mid-1870s, new ideas and technology were well on the way to changingalmost every aspect of American life. The location of Cleveland, Ohio, on the shoresof Lake Erie, gave the city access to raw materials and made it ripe for industrializa-tion. What no one foresaw were the undesirable side effects of rapid developmentand technological progress.

FROM HAYSTACKS TOSMOKESTACKSIn 1874, parts ofCleveland were still rural,with farms like the onepictured dotting thelandscape. Thesmokestacks of theStandard Oil refineryin the distance,however, indicatethat industrializa-tion had begun.

REFINING THE LANDSCAPEIndustries like the Standard Oil refinery shown in this1889 photo soon became a source of prosperity forboth Cleveland and the entire country. The pollutionthey belched into the atmosphere, however, was thebeginning of an ongoing problem: how to balance indus-trial production and environmental concerns.

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A New Industrial Age 235

A RIVER OF FIREIndustrial pollution would affectnot only the air but also the water.Refineries and steel mills dis-charged so much oil into theCuyahoga River that major firesbroke out on the water in 1936,1952, and 1969. The 1952 blaze,pictured above, destroyed threetugboats, three buildings, and theship-repair yards. In the decadefollowing the 1969 fire, changes inthe way industrial plants operated,along with the construction ofwastewater treatment plants,helped restore the quality of thewater.

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THINKING CRITICALLYTHINKING CRITICALLY

1. Analyzing Patterns Locate the Standard Oil Companyon the map of Cleveland. What can you conclude aboutwhere industry was located as compared with the loca-tion of residential neighborhoods?

2. Creating a Thematic Map Pose a historical questionabout the relationship between industry and areas ofthe Midwest. For example, what types of industry devel-oped near Chicago and why? Then research and createa map that answers your question.

SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R32.

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