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The New Industrial Order in

The Post-Civil War Period

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Topic 7

Natural resources – iron and oil Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments Favorable state and federal Government policies Immigration – influx of cheap labor New sources of power – oil / electricity American inventions and innovations Improved transportation – regional and

transcontinental railroads Giant corporations drive industrialization after the

Civil War

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New industrial products – factory-made goods

Improved standard of living begins Urban development Increased overseas trade / imperialism Problems of unregulated capitalism –

monopolies and ruthless competition Great fortunes accumulated

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Big corporations begin to replace single-owner business / partnerships with limited capital

Unfettered Competition Major investments in

railroads, steel, oil, telegraph and telephone communications

Corporations chartered to act as an “artificial legal person”

Emergence of powerful corporate tycoons

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Railroad empire begins1869

New York to Chicago

“What do I care for the law? Haven’t I got the Power?”

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Oil empire

Standard Oil Company of Ohio, 1870

90% of nation’s oil refineries

Supreme Court limits Rockefeller monopoly

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Steel empire

Carnegie Steel Company 1900

Iron ore deposits Railroads Steamships Steel mills

The Gospel of Wealth - the uses of wealth

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Finance – industrial consolidation

US Steel Corporation American Telephone

and Telegraph General Electric Northern Pacific RR

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Gustavus Swift – meatpacking

Philip D. Armour – meatpacking

Charles A. Pillsbury – flour milling

James B. Duke – cigarette manufacturing

Andrew Mellon – aluminum

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Created new industries

Efficiency Order out of

economic chaos Better services Improved quality of

products America becomes an

industrial giant Philanthropies –

endowment of museums, universities, libraries

Exploitation of workers

Corruption of government

Greed Destruction of small

producers Restraint of

competition - monopolies

Abuse of consumers Laissez faire

economics

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Haymarket Affair, 1886

Homestead Steel Strike, 1892

Pullman Strike, 1894 Anthracite Coal

Strike, 1902 Knights of Labor American Federation

of Labor The Industrial

Workers of the World

Low pay Long hours Unsafe working

conditions No minimum wage Employer lockouts

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“Mark Twain called the late 19th century the "Gilded Age." In the popular view, the late 19th century was a period of greed and guile, when rapacious robber barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers engaged in shady business practices and vulgar displays of wealth. It is easy to caricature the Gilded Age as an era of corruption, scandal-plagued politics, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. But it is more useful to think of this period as modern America's formative era, when the rules of modern politics and business practice were just beginning to be written.”

from www.digitalhistory.uh.edu

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Charles R. Morris, The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy

Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901

Leon Litwack, The American Labor Movement

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