1. The Impact of Big
Business
Social Studies
II Bimester
Sixth Grade
2.
3. Steel Production
• In the late 1800s, new inventions were everywhere.
New tools made work easier. Some inventions
made farming more efficient, but this meant fewer
workers were needed on farms. At the same time,
other inventions were creating jobs in cities. To fill
these jobs, workers from the farms flooded into the
cities. The growth of cities is called urbanization.
4. • Businesses were growing rapidly. The economy of
the United States is a free enterprise system. That
means people are free to start their own
businesses. They are also free to do whatever work
they want.
5. Business Leaders Take
Risks
• It was, and still is, risky to star a business. But if
you are successful, there are great rewards. One
thing that was needed in the rapidly growing cities
was steel.
• An entrepreneur named Andrew Carnegie was
determined to supply it.
6. • An entrepreneur creates
and runs a new business
and takes on all the risks
of the business.
• Carnegie’s family was
poor, so Carnegie began
working at a factory at
age 12. But he studied
hard and made te most of
every opportunity.
• By the time he was 30
years old, he was a
wealthy investor. Then he
started to make steel.
• https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=qoUUC4V1mNE
7. • Steel had always
been expensive,
because it was hard
to make.
• Then in 1856 a British
engineer named
Henry Bessemer
perfected a new way
to make steel.
• The Bessemer
process produced
good steel at a much
lower cost.
8. • Carnegie wanted to
keep his costs as low as
possible. He bought the
iron and coal mines that
produced the raw
materials for steel. Next,
he bought the ships and
railroads that
transported the raw
materials.
• He helped turn steel into
a major American
Industry.
• By 1910, the United
States made more steel
than any other country in
the world.
9. Inventions and Businesses
• Growing cities needed
bigger buildings. The
strength of steel made
bigger buildings possible.
• In 1885, the first skyscraper
was built in Chicago,
Illionois. Soon tall buildings
were going up everywhere.
10. Inventions and Business
• Automobiles were exciting,
but they were expensive.
• Then, in 1903, American
entrepreneur Henry Ford
started the Ford Motor
Company. The Ford Motor
Company is a corporation.
• A corporation is a business
owned by investors.
• Investors buy stock, a
share of the company, to
become partial owners.
11. Inventions and Businesses
• Henry Ford had a new idea
about how to build cars: the
assembly line.
• With an assembly line, a
product is put together as it
moves past a line of workers.
Each worker works on one part
of the product before the product
moves to the next worker. So
more products can be made
faster and more cheaply.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=HPpTK2ezxL0
12. • In 1908, The Ford Motor Company started to
produce one of its most popular cars: The Model T.
• The Model T was a simple car that many people
could afford, and ford sold millions.
14. What is Immigration?
Immigration is the movement of people into a destination country
which they are not natives of or where they do not possess citizenship
in order to settle or reside there, especially as permanent residents or
naturalized citizens, or to take-up employment as a migrant worker or
temporarily as a foreign worker.
15. Why People
Immigrated?
Why immigrants left
their homelands?
What immigrants hoped
to find in America?
1. They were poor.
3. There were no opportunities.
2. They faced war, prejudice,
and oppression.
16. What is a “melting
pot”?
A place where
Europeans could
“melt” old ideas and
prejudices and be
molded into a new
people called
Americans.
19. Lesson 1 - Inventors
and Inventions
• In the late 1800s, Americans were becoming
consumers.
• Important new inventions began to change
the way people worked, communicated, and
lived.
• New forms of transportation were introduced.
20. Lesson 2 - The impact
of Big Business
• Andrew Carnegie and other
entrepreneurs created new industries.
• Natural resources in the United States
helped the economy to grow rapidly.
• Many Americans moved to big cities to
work in industries there.
21. Lesson 3 -
Immigration
• After the Civil War, millions of new
immigrants from Europe and Asia
arrived in America.
• Life in America could be hard for
immigrants.
