The Industrial Revolution

1850-1900

New Products of the Industrial Revolution

Patents• License to make, use, or sell an invention

1790-1860 36,000 issued

1860-1890 500,000 issued

Life in the 1860s• No indoor electric lights

• No refrigeration

• In 1860, most mail from the East Coast took ten days to reach the Midwest and three weeks to get to the West Coast. A letter from Europe to a person on the frontier could take several months to reach its destination.

Life in the 1900s• Power stations across the country

began providing electricity for lamps, fans, printing presses, and many other appliances.

• Drilling for Oil

• Needed for factories to run efficiently

• Drilling was quicker. cheaper, and created a much larger supply than digging ditches or melting animal fat

Telegraph

• Invented by Samuel F. B. Morse

Telephone

• Invented by Alexander Graham Bell

• By 1900, there were 1.5 million telephones in use all over the country, and Western Union Telegraph was sending roughly 63 million messages.

Thomas A. Edison

• Setup research lab

• Created a system for producing and distributing electrical power

Edison

• Perfected the light bulb

Edison

• Developed the phonograph

Edison

• Developed the motion

picture camera

George Westinghouse

• Helped make electricity safer and less expensive by funding Nikola Tesla (AC Current)

• More effective air brakes for trains

•Developed a way to transmit it long

distances (Transformers)

Other Inventions• Electric sewing

machine

• Cameras

• Refrigerator

Meanwhile on the farm…

• Mechanical Reapers

• Sod busting plows

• Mechanized tractors

The Bessemer Process

• In 1856, Henry Bessemer receives a patent on a process that made steel production easier and less expensive.

• The Bessemer process made possible the mass production of steel.

•The Brooklyn Bridge,

designed with steel

cables suspended from high

towers, was made

possible by mass

production.

John Roebling

• Designed & started building the Brooklyn Bridge- 1st suspension

Elevators

• It took another innovation to

begin the transformation of

cities

Early SkyscrapersStrong steel plus

elevators mean that America’s teeming cities can now grow upwards!

Automobile

• Automobile – Henry Ford made the car more affordable by using the assembly line

• Assembly line – process where each worker does one task in the making of a final product

Division of Labor

•When someone completes one task as part of the job

•Positive: increases productivity for businesses

•Negative: workers no longer take pride in work and removes creativity

Compare The Idea of Making Shoes

He may never work on shoes!

Frederick Winslow Taylor

•Organized and systemized factories

•Goal: to get workers to produce more in less time

Industrial Revolution

Business LeadersBusiness Practices

Business Regulations

1. Business Leaders

• Generally classified as either a

“Robber Baron”

or a

“Captain of Industry”

I. Robber Barons

•Business leaders who made their fortunes by taking advantage of the public

•They drained natural resources and charged high prices

• They persuaded public officials to interpret laws in their favor.

• They ruthlessly drove their competitors to ruin.

• They paid their workers meager wages and forced them to toil under dangerous and unhealthful conditions.

• Adhered to a policy of “Social Darwinism”, as it applied to business practices

Social Darwinismor, Laissez-Faire

• Based on Darwin’s Based on Darwin’s Theory of Theory of EvolutionEvolution (1859) regarding natural (1859) regarding natural selection and the selection and the survival of the fittestsurvival of the fittest

• Businessmen are justified in using Businessmen are justified in using anyany means necessary to become rich means necessary to become rich and powerful, and the government and powerful, and the government should stay out!should stay out!

•Three business practices exemplified the philosophy of Social Darwinism–Monopolies–Cartels–Trusts

•Monopoly (Vertical Consolidation) one company completely controls a product or a service, from the means of production, to manufacturing, to transportation, and sales

Controlling the MarketBob’s Pizza

Bob’s Farm

Bob’s Cheese Factory

Bob’s Trucking Company

• Using Vertical Consolidation, Bob could control the Pizza market in town by controlling many of the costs associated with making his pizza!

• Monopoly

(Horizontal Consolidation)

One company buys out each of their competitors, and therefore owns every outlet for a certain product

Controlling the Market

Bob’s Pizza

Delaware

Pizza

Pizza PizzaHappy Time Pizza

Bob’s Pizza Bob’s Pizza Bob’s Pizza

Bob’s Pizza

• Using Horizontal Consolidation, Bob could control the Pizza market in town by buying the other Pizza shops!

•Cartel – a loose association of businesses in a similar field or that make the same product and agree to limit supply to drive up prices

• Trust

multiple company’s selling the same product agreed that rather than compete with each other over prices and profits, they would agree to set their prices, and then split the profits evenly

II. Captains of Industry

• Still practiced the theory of Social Darwinism to a certain extent to increase their fortunes, but:–They increased the supply of

goods by building factories.–They raised productivity and

expanded markets, further lowering prices

• They created jobs at decent wages and in safe factories that enabled

many Americans to buy new goods and raise their standard of living.

• They also funded museums, libraries,

and universities, many of which still

serve the public today.

Carnegie Hall

III. A Compromise?“The Gospel of Wealth”

•Philosophy that states a person should be able to make as much money as they can, BUT they should also use their wealth to improve society.

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie

• Captain of Industry for steel production in Pittsburgh

• Used Bessemer Process to produce stronger steel

• Utilized vertical consolidation for business purposes

• Born in Scotland

Carnegie as a Philanthropist•A Philanthropist uses wealth

to improve society•Carnegie funded the

building of libraries, education facilities, and music/arts facilities

John D. RockefellerFormed Standard

Oil Company

John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company

• Wealthy individual who saw the oil industry as a way to get richer

• Made illegal deals with railroads to transport oil cheaper, thus weakening other refineries that he would eventually buy

• Utilized horizontal consolidation for business purposes

Business Cycle•The growth and contraction of a

nation’s economy•A new concept in the

mid-late 1800s

• While big business urged the federal government to adopt a Laissez-Faire attitude, many consumers and workers called for a “Social Welfare” policy to be enforced

Social Welfare

• It is the government’s responsibility to control big businesses in order guarantee quality products at fair prices for consumers, and fair pay and decent hours for workers

Sherman Antitrust Act

•Enacted in 1890•Effort by Congress to end trusts

•Ineffective due to lack of enforcement

Survival Guide for Poor Families

•Send children as young as age 6 to work

•Force children to leave school•Ask for aid from a private charity

(church, etc.) because•Government Welfare is non-

existent at this time!

Workday Length

•Typically 12 hours/day, 6 days/week

•After 1868 Government employees were guaranteed an 8 hour day (did not apply to private businesses)

Piecework

•Used by some companies•Paid by how many items you

produce•Faster workers

made more $

Frederick Winslow Taylor

•Organized and systemized factories

•Goal: to get workers to produce more in less time

Jacob Riis

• Illustrated the negative impact of children working in mines and factories

• Published photos of working children in How the Other Half Lives

• Wrote Children of the Poor

Lewis Hine• Traveled around the

country to photograph child workers in factories, mills, mines, and canneries.

• Documented the plight of working children

• Photos were used as evidence (to the public and government) of the need for child labor reform

Ida Tarbell• Journalist who Journalist who investigated and investigated and

exposed misconduct exposed misconduct among political and/or among political and/or

business leadersbusiness leaders

Ida Tarbell

•Focused on Drilling, shipping, refining, and the sale of oil

Ida Tarbell•Ida’s father

was forced out of

business by Standard Oil

•Perhaps this was

revenge???