Course notes american pageant 14th edition chapter 24

Hill, probably the greatest railroad builder of all. Railroad Consolidation and Mechanization Older eastern railroads, like the New York Central, headed by Cornelius Vanderbilt, often financed the successful western railroads.

Advancements in railroads included the steel rail, which was stronger and more enduring than the iron rail, the Westinghouse air brake which increased safety, the Pullman Palace Cars which were luxurious passenger cars, and telegraphs, double-racking, and block signals.

Nevertheless, train accidents were common, as well as death. Revolution by Railways Railroads stitched the nation together, generated a huge market and lots of jobs, helped the rapid industrialization of America, and stimulated mining and agriculture in the West by bringing people and supplies to and from the areas where such work occurred.

Railroads helped people settle in the previously harsh Great Plains. Due to railroads, the creation of four national time zones occurred on November 18, , instead of each city having its own time zone that was confusing to railroad operators. Railroads were also the makers of millionaires and the millionaire class. Wrongdoing in Railroading Railroads were not without corruption, as shown by the Credit Mobilier scandal.

Railroad owners abused the public, bribed judges and legislatures, employed arm-twisting lobbyists, elected their own to political office, gave rebates which helped the wealthy but not the poor , and used free passes to gain favor in the press. Government Bridles the Iron Horse People were aware of such injustice, but were slow to combat it. The Grange was formed by farmers to combat such corruption, and many state efforts to stop the railroad monopoly occurred, but they were stopped when the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Wabash case, in which it ruled that states could not regulate interstate commerce, such as trains.

The Interstate Commerce Act, passed in , banned rebates and pools and required the railroads to publish their rates openly so as not to cheat customers , and also forbade unfair discrimination against shippers and banned charging more for a short haul than for a long one.

Miracles of Mechanization In , the U. Now-abundant liquid capital. Fully exploited natural resources like coal, oil, and iron, the iron came from the Minnesota-Lake Superior region which yielded the rich iron deposits of the Mesabi Range.

Massive immigration made labor cheap. American ingenuity played a vital role, as such inventions like mass production from Eli Whitney were being refined and perfected.

Popular inventions included the cash register, the stock ticker, the typewriter, the refrigerator car, the electric dynamo, and the electric railway, which displaced animal-drawn cars.

In , Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and a new age was launched. The Trust Titan Emerges Industry giants used various ways to eliminate competition and maximize profits.

John D. He used this method to form Standard Oil and control the oil industry by forcing weaker competitors to go bankrupt. These men became known for their trusts, giant, monopolistic corporations. This was due to an invention that made steel-making cheaper and much more effective: the Bessemer process, which was named after an English inventor even though an American, William Kelly, had discovered it first: Cold air blown on red-hot iron burned carbon deposits and purified it.

America was one of the few nations that had a lot of coal for fuel, iron for smelting, and other essential ingredients for steel making, and thus, quickly became 1. Carnegie and Other Sultans of Steel Andrew Carnegie started off as a poor boy in a bad job, but by working hard, assuming responsibility, and charming influential people, he worked his way up to wealth.

Rockefeller Grows an American Beauty Rose In , a man named Drake first used oil to get money, and by the s, kerosene, a type of oil, was used to light lamps all over the nation. Oil, however, was just beginning with the gasoline-burning internal combustion engine.

Rockefeller crushed weaker competitors—part of the natural process according to him—but his company did produce superior oil at a cheaper price. Other trusts, which also generally made better products at cheaper prices, emerged, such as the meat industry of Gustavus F. Swift and Philip Armour. Congress could regulate interstate trade left big business largely unregulated.

The businesses could easily bribe state legislators to vote pro-business. Also, corporate lawyers used the 14th Amendment to the benefit of the corporation.

The amendment was written to give former slaves citizenship rights, but corporate lawyers got corporations classified as legal people with full citizenship rights as well. The law forbade " combinations " such as… " pools " or cartels —where "competitors" got together and behaved as one mega-company. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was not effective because a proving combinations exist, especially with pools, can be difficult, and b it lacked real teeth in enforcement.

In the anti-trust movement finally gained real muscle to enforce its provisions. The South still produced less than before the Civil War and the farming was split up into small chunks, often done by sharecroppers who "rented" the land.

James Buchanan Duke gave the South a boost when the cigarette industry took off. Henry W. Grady , editor of the Atlanta Constitution , urged Southerners to beat the Yankees at their own game of industry. Still, old ways die hard and industry was slow to grow in the South.

The railroads were stacked against Southern industry as well. Rates for manufactured goods going southward were cheaper than northward. Rates for raw materials favored the South. Cotton mills did begin to emerge down South. The benefits of the mill jobs were mixed. It meant jobs, but it also meant cheap labor and the desire to keep labor rates low—often half of what Northern mill hands earned. Still, the mills were a thankful blessing to many Southerners.

The old Jefferson vs. Hamilton dispute had also been solved: Jefferson's ideals of small-town agriculture was being trumped by Hamilton's big-city business. Lifestyles changed as well.

The "can see, 'til can't see" farmer became a factory worker that labored from whistle to whistle. Women gained increasing roles in business as well as secretaries and in clerical jobs. This "new woman" was idealized by the " Gibson Girl ," illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson of attractive, stylish, and athletic women active outside of the home. Still, this increased role in the workplace shouldn't be over-stated.

The traditional role of women as manager of the household was still the top "job" for women. Society had been transformed from self-employed farmers to employed wage-earners. The Industrial Revolution flooded the American market so businesses began to look overseas; American imperialism would soon follow. This yielded both good and bad results. The positive was that a there actually were jobs and b that the overall standard-of-living did in fact rise.

There were also many negative effects… Immigration was increasing which meant wages were cheap. For employers, replacement of "uppity" or troublesome workers was easy enough with eager immigrants. Workers united in unions in hopes of finding strength in numbers. The union's main weapon of striking was still not very effective because… Employers could hire lawyers to wrangle around the issues. Big-business could call on the courts to order strikers back to work. Big-business could mandate " ironclad oaths " or " yellow dog contracts " where workers pledged to not join a union.

Big-business could " black list " troublesome workers meaning no other employer would hire that person. Some businesses ran " company towns " where workers were paid " scrip " not real money but company money good at the company store. Workers were also given easy credit meaning they usually got themselves into debt and never got out. In a broader sense, the idea of Social Darwinism pervaded society and lended workers little pity. It said a person's lot in life was the result of his or her own doing or lack of doing —the rich had earned their position and the poor had the same opportunity to do so.

The National Labor Union lasted 6 years and had , members—skilled, unskilled, and farmers. Par-for-the-times, blacks and women were only slightly sought after and Chinese immigrants were excluded. Their goals were a arbitration settlement by a mediator of worker complaints and b an 8 hour workday which was granted to government workers. The depression ruined the National Labor Union.

The Knights of Labor began in secrecy and then came out in It welcomed skilled and unskilled, women and blacks. The only people banned were "non producers": liquor dealers, professional gamblers, lawyers, bankers, and stockbrokers, The Knights sought workers' cooperatives to pool their money and resources , better working conditions, and the 8 hour workday. They had some success, led by Terence V. They got the 8 hour day in several places and pulled off a successful strike against Jay Gould's Wabash Railroad After this their numbers bloomed to , members.

The strikes had mixed results. The " Haymarket Square Incident " occurred in Chicago in There strikers were intermingled with a handful of anarchists calling for overthrow of the government. A bombing took place and a handful of bystanders, including police, were killed or injured. The anarchists were the likely culprit, but the public placed blame on the Knights and unions. Eight anarchists were arrested; five were given the death sentence and the other three were given hefty sentences.

They were eventually pardoned by Governor John P. Atlgeld in These actions were unpopular and cost him reelection. The end result of the Haymarket Square incident was a distrust in unions and a decline in their membership. The AF of L was made up of small, independent unions. They were tied together by their association with the AF of L.

Gompers desire for workers was summed up simply as "more. Gompers wanted "trade agreements" to allow the "closed shop" businesses closed to non-union members, or in other words, you must join the union in order to work there. His main weapons were the boycott and the strike. To boycott, "We don't patronize" sign would be placed on unpopular businesses. To strike, union dues would build up funds to hopefully see them through the strike.

The AF of L was made up of skilled craftsmen. Unskilled workers were not included because they were too easily replaced and thus weakened the union. This exclusion of unskilled workers is a notable difference from the CIO which came later and included the unskilled. They eventually garnered , members and were criticized as the "labor trust. Around , views on labor unions began to turn for the better.

Workers were allowed to organize unionize , collectively bargain, and strike. The most symbolic achievement for workers was the passage of Labor Day where workers, ironically, take the day off from work.

The rise of unions could be summed up as a long battle that was just beginning. Strikes, negotiations, firings, hirings, etc. In the grand scheme of things, despite unions' constant efforts, labor unions in the 's were largely ineffective mostly due to the never-ending stream of immigrants which always assured an eager labor force. The Gibson Girl was young, athletic, attractive, and outdoorsy not the stay-at-home mom type. However, many women never achieved this, and instead toiled in hard work because they had to do so in order to earn money.

A nation of farmers was becoming a nation of wage earners, but the fear of unemployment was never far, and the illness of a breadwinner the main wage owner in a family was disastrous. Strong pressures in foreign trade developed as the tireless industrial machine threatened to flood the domestic market. In Unions There Is Strength With the inflow of immigrants providing a labor force that would work for low wages and in poor environments, the workers who wanted to improve their conditions found that they could not, since their bosses could easily hire the unemployed to take their places.

Corporations had many weapons against strikers, such as hiring strikebreakers or asking the courts to order strikers to stop striking, and if they continued, to bring in troops. The National Labor Union , formed in , represented a giant boot stride by workers and attracted an impressive total of , members, but it only lasted six years.

It worked for the arbitration of industrial disputes and the eight-hour workday, and won the latter for government workers, but the depression of knocked it out. A new organization, the Knights of Labor , was begun in and continued secretly until This organization was similar to the National Labor Union.

It only barred liquor dealers, professional gamblers, lawyers, bankers, and stockbrokers, and they campaigned for economic and social reform. Led by Terence V. Unhorsing the Knights of Labor However, the Knights became involved in a number of May Day strikes of which half failed.

In Chicago, home to about 80, Knights and a few hundred anarchists that advocated a violent overthrow of the American government, tensions had been building, and on May 4, , Chicago police were advancing on a meeting that had been called to protest brutalities by authorities when a dynamite bomb was thrown, killing or injuring several dozen people.

Eight anarchists were rounded up yet no one could prove that they had any association with the bombing, but since they had preached incendiary doctrines, the jury sentenced five of them to death on account of conspiracy and gave the other three stiff prison terms.

In , John P. Altgeld , a German-born Democrat was elected governor of Illinois and pardoned the three survivors after studying the case extensively. He received violent verbal abuse for that and was defeated during re-election. This so-called Haymarket Square Bombing forever associated the Knights of Labor with anarchists and lowered their popularity and effectiveness; membership declined, and those that remained fused with other labor unions.

It consisted of an association of self-governing national unions, each of which kept its independence, with the AF of L unifying overall strategy.

Gompers demanded a fairer share for labor. The AF of L established itself on solid but narrow foundations, since it tried to speak for all workers but fell far short of that. Composed of skilled laborers, it was willing to let unskilled laborers fend for themselves. However, by , the public was starting to concede the rights of workers and beginning to give them some or most of what they wanted. In , Labor Day was made a legal holiday. A few owners were beginning to realize that losing money to fight labor strikes was useless, though most owners still dogmatically fought labor unions.

If the age of big business had dawned, the age of big labor was still some distance over the horizon. US History. Subject X Printer-friendly version. Need Help? Need Notes?