By the early 1900s, the US had become the world's leading industrial nation due to its abundant natural resources, improved transportation infrastructure like railroads, a large and growing workforce, and government policies that supported industrialization through loans, subsidies and tariffs. Major industrialists like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Ford and Vanderbilt built vast fortunes and monopolies in industries like oil, steel, railroads and automobiles. While industrialization increased overall national wealth, the lives of many factory workers were difficult, with unsafe conditions, long hours and low pay leading to major labor strikes throughout the late 19th century.

1. Industrial Revolution

2. 1_Introduction_to_the_American_Revolution_1min12

3. By early 1900s, US world’s leading
industrial nation.
Fueled by:
Abundant supply of natural resources
Improved transportation
 transcontinental railroad moving resources
and people
 Increase in labor force
 1860-1910 population tripled
 Greater demand for consumer goods
 Large workforce

4. Gov’t supported industrialization:
 Helped industries with loans & minimal
regulation
 Railroad construction subsidized by gov’t
 Loans and land grants
Maintained laissez-faire approach
 Imposed few regulations
 Viewed labor organizations with suspicion
 High tariffs on imports to protect domestic
industry
 Contradicted laissez-faire
 Caused foreign nations to raise tariffs
 Increased cost of American goods

5. The Men who Built America-
History Channel Series
 Traits of a “TITAN”  PREVIEW
 2 pages of
handwritten notes
over 1 episode = 2
FREE 100s
 5 different episodes
 Rockefeller
 Carnegie
 JP Morgan/Edison
 Ford
 Vanderbuilt

6. 3_Steel_Industry_2min8

7. Steel…
 Affected technological change more
than any other product
 Allowed for cheaper building materials
Bessemer Process
 Cold air pressure method of transforming
iron ore into steel
 Andrew Carnegie- Steel Tycoon
 Believed in SOCIAL GOSPEL movement-financed
Public Libraries
 GOSPEL OF WEALTH: Believed it was
wealthy’ s obligation to contribute to society
(part of the social gospel movement)
 Philanthropist

8. 4_Oil_Industry_2min51

9. Oil and Electricity
 Oil could be refined into
gasoline, kerosene, and distillate
John D. Rockefeller
 Standard Oil Co.
 Own all aspects of production
 Oil wells, refineries, retail outlets
 Controlled 90% of world’s oil trade
 Edison Electric Illuminating
Co.
 Supplied electric power to
New York City

10. Railroads & Banks
“Commodore” Vanderbilt
 Railroad monopoly
 American industrialist and
philanthropist who built
his wealth in shipping and
railroads
J.P. Morgan
 Monopoly of the BANKS
 Interlocking directorates
 In 1892 Morgan arranged
the merger of Edison
General
Electric and Thomson-
Houston Electric
Company to form General
Electric (AKA GE)

11. The Assembly Line
 Henry Ford popularized use in
manufacturing
 Combined sub-assembly lines into one
continuous moving line
 Divided operation into simple tasks
 Workers performed same task repeatedly
 Unskilled workers could perform tasks
 Allowed for faster production
 Reduced cost of automobile
 Efficiency!!!!

12. Railroads
 Pacific Railway Act provided for
construction of transcontinental RR
 Transcontinental Railroad
 Gov’t gave land along right-of-way to
encourage rapid construction
 Sold land to pay for costs
 Union Pacific RR-built East to West from
Omaha, NE
 Central Pacific RR-built West to East from
Sacramento, CA
 Hired workers from China
 Joined May 10, 1869 near Ogden Utah

13. Big Business cont’d.
Competition creates lower prices
 Without competition, monopolies form
 Vertical integration (Carnegie)
 One company owns all other businesses it
takes to make finished product
 Chair Co = Cloth Co + Frame Co + Shipping Co
 Horizontal integration (Rockefeller/J.P.
Morgan)
 One large company owns several smaller
companies doing the same type business
 Mega Convenience Store = Allsups + Pak-a-Sak
+ Toot-n-Totum

14. Negative View of Industry
SOCIAL DARWINISM-
 The belief that society
was much like nature and
only the “strong”
survived
 Large monopolists often
used this theory to defend
their immense fortunes
and ill treatment of
workers
• Often times the
“INDUSTRIALISTS”
were referred to as
“ROBBER
BARRONS” or
“TITANS OF
INDUSTRY”
because of their
unethical and power
hungry strategies

17. 5_The_Urban_Transformation_7min15

18. Factory Work in US
 Life in the factory—
 Unsafe work environment
 No gov’t regulations
 Low pay
 Long hours
 Tedious, monotonous jobs—no skills required
 Unions
 Great length to keep out of factories
 Samuel Gompers—first leader of American
Federation of Labor
 Fought for higher wages, better working conditions

19. Knights of
Labor
Terence V.
Powderly
• Open membership (skilled, unskilled, women,
children, immigrants and African Americans
• Goals was to create a cooperative society in
which laborers and capitalists were equal
• Were blamed for Haymarket Square Riot unfairly
and became known as anarchists/violence
Industrial
Workers of the
World
(IWW)
• “Mother”
Jones
• Elizabeth
Flynn
• Big Bill
Haywood
• Like Knights in that they strove to unite all
workers (open membership)
• Motto: “An injury to one is an injury to all”
• Embraced class conflict and violent tactics
• Small union (150,000)
American
Federation of
Labor
“AFL”
Samuel
Gompers
• Alliance of SKILLED workers
• Concentrated on “Bread and Butter issues” such
as higher wages, shorter hours and better
working conditions

22. Famous Strikes of the Industrial Revolution
Homestead Strike (1892)
 “Lock out” by one of
Carnegie’s steel
mills near Pittsburgh
 Carnegie supported
Unions but the
“Chairman” of US
Steel, Henry Frick,
wanted to break the
Union at Homestead
 Turned violent and
very public

23. Famous Strikes of the Industrial
Revolution
Haymarket Riot
 Nationwide Strike to
support an 8-hour
workday
 A clash between strikers
and police leaves one
dead in Chicago’s
Haymarket Square
 Bomb thrown by
strikers…Police open
fired
 7 police dead
 4 workers killed
The Pullman Strike
 Pullman Palace Rail Car
Co. had to cut wages
because of hard
economic times
 Workers had unionized
under the ARU (American
Railway Union
 Leader: Eugene V. Debs
 ARU boycotts Pullman
Railcars
 Entire US’s rails are shut
down
 President Cleveland has to
send it troops to stop
boycott

24. The Great Railroad Strike of
1877
Panic of 1873 (recession) forces
companies to cut wages
 This causes 1st NATIONWIDE Labor
protest
 Rail workers walked off job, blocked
tracks and destroyed Rail Co. property
 President Hayes ends up sending
troops in to put to order and stop
violence

25. The Impact of Industry
Industrial Revolution at first not
benefit everyone equally
National wealth and personal
income grew significantly by
1920s
Cheaper consumer goods on
market

26. 7_Impact_of_an_Era_1min18