This document provides an overview of topics related to electricity, social classes, and responses to labor in the late 19th century, including: 1) Discussions of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse's contributions to electricity and the "Current War" between alternating and direct current. 2) Descriptions of the upper, middle, and working classes in this period as well as organized labor movements like the National Labor Union and Knights of Labor. 3) Accounts of major strikes in the 1870s-1890s such as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the Homestead Steel Strike, and the Pullman Strike, and labor leaders like Mother Jones.

2. Electricity, Classes, and Responses to Labor
• Today we will:
• Continue from last time (beginning with Electricity)
• Talk about the Middle and Working classes
• Examine the responses to corporate growth and working conditions
• Look forward to next week: Urbanization

3. What do we think? Robber Barons or
Captains of Industry?
• Captains of Industry - 2
• Both - 5
• Both (more Captains) - 2

4. Mail Order Catalogs
• Who (or which company) started the mail order
catalog business?
• Why?
• What is (probably) the most famous company to run
mail order catalogs?
• By 1900, what was the only book read by more
people than this catalog?
• How did mail order catalogs change life in the
Midwest and West?

5. Thomas Edison
• Born in Ohio grew up in Michigan
• During his childhood he developed a love for electricity and the telegraph
• Dreamed of growing up to be a telegraph operator for the railroad
• Did he achieve this goal?
• In 1869 (age 21) he moved to NYC to become an inventor
• Creates a number of machines that streamline office work and uses the
money to create an industrial research lab in Menlo Park, NJ
• 1877 creates the phonograph
• 1879 creates a long lasting and viable light bulb
• Created or perfected many other devices
• Became world famous, “The Wizard of Menlo Park”
• Held 1093 patents in the US alone by the time of his death

6. • Mimeograph
• Storage battery
• Dictaphone
• Electric motor
• Motion picture camera
• Had the first movie studio room
• Projector
• Carbon microphone

7. Nikola Tesla
• Ethnically Serbian, from present day Croatia, was a citizen of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire before immigrating to the US
• Held 112 US patents, and almost another 200 in other countries
• Worked for Edison briefly when he came to the US
• Left after a falling out and after many of his individual ideas were brushed
aside in favor of using his talents improve projects Edison deemed valuable
• Found financial investors in his AC Induction Motor
• His ideas on the use of AC (alternating current) put him at odds
with Edison, who was heavily invested in DC (direct current)

8. George Westinghouse
• Born in Central Bridge in upstate NY
• Served in the Civil War for the Union Army then Navy
• Dropped out of college and began inventing at 19
• Rotary Steam Engine
• Created his own version of the Farm Engine
• Created numerous devices related to railroads
• Created the Air Brake (for use on trains) (age 22)
• Simultaneously apply brakes to cars at the same time, reducing stopping distance
• Developed more efficient signaling systems
• Began marketing AC systems but needed someone more versed in
AC, began working with Tesla’s company.

9. The Current War
• Edison’s company was trying to market their DC system to bring
electricity to cities and towns
• Westinghouse was marketing the competing AC system
• This competition gets quite heated and ugly
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcrwTN5OEZY

10. The End of the Current War
• What do we use extensively in the US now?
• So who won?
• As with everything, it is complicated.
The Impact of Electricity
• How did electricity change the way people lived?
• What did it mean for big business?
• What did it mean for building projects?
• How does that change cities?

11. The Growing Division in Classes
• Who constituted the upper socio-economic class?
• Who made up the growing middle class?
• Where did they work?
• What are their jobs often referred to as?
• What was the role of women in the middle class?
• How was this different than before the civil war?
• Why did the working class grow so much during this period?
• What was a work day like? How long was the average work week?
• What jobs did women usually fill?
• What about children?

12. Organized Labor
• What does the term “blacklisted” mean, and where
does it come from?
• What is a “scab?”
• Who were the Molly Maguires?
• What was the Pinkerton Detective Agency?
• What happened during the Great Railroad Strike of
1877?
• Where did it start? How was it ended?
• Who were often blamed for the poor working conditions?
• National Labor Union (Founded 1866)
• What did they want?
• What did they achieve?

13. Further Labor Developments
• Knights of Labor (1869)
• Included all laborers, did not divide by industry
• Admitted women, African-Americans, but did not allow Chinese
• Mother Jones – Crusader for Labor
• Irish immigrant whose husband and children died in Memphis (yellow fever)
• Moved to Chicago and worked in clothing factories, loses everything in the Great
Fire of 1871
• Turns efforts to the Labor Movement, joins Knights of Labor
• Crisscrosses the country supporting strikes and organizing marches into her 80s
• Haymarket Riot (1886)
• At a KOL labor rally, anarchists threw a bomb into a police force sent to watch the
gathered workers
• The individuals responsible were tried and hanged, became martyrs of the working
class
• Governments pass more regulation of labor groups, KOL never recovers from the
perceived connection to anarchism and declines in popularity

14. Trade Unions and More Strikes
• American Federation of Labor (AFL)(1886)
• Collection of smaller unions, focused on tangible gains more than just
better working conditions
• Mostly focused on trade workers, rather than industrial labor
• Samuel Gompers, an English immigrant, served as their leader till 1924
• Other major strikes
• Homestead Steel Strike (1892)
• The Pullman Strike (1894) (Pullman, IL – Near Chicago)
• What is a company town? What happened with this strike?
• American Railway Union and Eugene V. Debs
• Lattimer Massacre (1897)
• Miners, almost all immigrants were violently put down by local sheriff’s deputies
paid by the company, 19 were killed, 39 more wounded

15. Wrapping Up
• Please take out a piece of paper
• Put your name on it
• Federal workers were granted an 8 hour workday in 1868. When did a 40
hour week become full-time universally under the law?
• For next time:
• Read Chapter 19
• Feel free to let me know if you have any questions
• Please turn in your sheet for participation
• See you next week!