Big Businesses and Big Cities

1
Big Businesses and Big Cities

• Chapter 8

2
Technological Advances
3
Rise of Big Business

• Big businesses began and grew with inventors
  inventing new inventions.
• New inventions saved time, money, and improved
  life for many people.
• Inventions at the turn of the century include
• Steel by Henry Bessemer (1856) which made steel
  less expensive
• Andrew Carnegie built a factory using Henry
  Bessemers steel to make rails for railroads
• 1/4 of all steel in 1900 was made by Carnegies
  factories

4

• An oil cup by Elijah McCoy (1872) which allowed
  trains and machines to run longer because it gave
  lubrication
• Typewrites by Remington Sons (1874) which
  helped office workers save time by typing letters
  and reports
• Paper bags with flat bottoms by Margaret Knight
  (1867) which allowed paper bags to hold more

5

• Telephone by Alexander Graham Bell (1876) which
  allowed people to communicate long distances
• Phonograph by Thomas Edison (1877) played music
  on records
• Electric light bulb by Thomas Edison (1879) gave
  cleaner and safe light which allowed buisnesses
  to stay open later

6

• All of these inventions allowed big businesses to
  grow and become corporations and monopolies
• Corporations are businesses where many people own
  shares, or parts of the business.
• Monopolies is a company that has no competition
• John D. Rockefeller formed the Standard Oil
  Company in 1870 who became so large that they
  were able to have big profits.
• Profits is money earned by a business after all
  the costs of machinery, workers, and raw
  materials are paid.

7

• Business owners wanted to make as much money as
  they could so that they could build factories and
  expensive machines.
• They would make this money by selling lots of
  shares of their company to people
• Often times, little companies could not survive
  and were either bought out or forced to close.
• As these big corporations grew bigger and bigger
  they slowly eliminated any competition.

8

• This then allowed companies to set the price for
  goods at any amount and people were forced to pay
  it if they wanted those goods.
• These corporations that turned into monopolies
  were often accused of hurting consumers and
  providing poor services.

9

• Owners of these corporations and monopolies tried
  to stay on the consumers good side by becoming
  philanthropists
• Philanthropists are people who give money away to
  projects that help people in need.
• Carnegie and Rockefellers were known as huge
  philanthropists.

10
A mixed bag for the workers

• Although many owners of these corporations and
  monopolies were making large profits- the impact
  on workers were huge.
• As consumers bought large quantities of
  inexpensive machine made products- corporations
  and monopolies had to hire more workers to meet
  the demand.

11

• More workers meant more people got paid, however
• These workers often worked 10 12 hour days,
• 6 days a week
• In poor working conditions
• Being underpaid for the job they were doing which
  in turn caused families to
• Pull children out of school so that they could go
  to the factories to make extra money

12
Labor Unions

• Labor Unions, like the Knights of Labor and
  American Federation of Labor, sprang up as
  workers united to fight for more pay, better
  working conditions, and shorter hours.
• Labor unions is an organization of workers that
  tries to fight for the rights of the workers
• These labor unions tried to force businesses to
  meet the needs of the workers by asking workers
  to strike, or refuse to work, until things
  improved.

13

• Often times the big corporations and monopolies
  simply fired the workers or called in the police
  to stop the strike which left many workers in
  worse shape than before.
• The big corporations and monopolies knew they
  could always get new workers from the stream of
  immigrants coming to America.

14
Immigrants in America
15
The reasons for coming

• Immigrants were streaming into the United States
  in the late 1800s and early 1900s as they left
  their homeland to look for a better life.
• Immigrants left because
• They wanted to escape famine
• They wanted to escape war
• They wanted to escape persecution (persecution is
  unfair treatment or punishment)
• They wanted political freedom
• They wanted religious freedom

16
Immigration Stations

• Immigration stations, or points of entry for
  immigrants, were set up to get as much
  information from the newcomers as possible.
• Immigration stations include
• Ellis Island (New York) for the European
  immigrants
• Angel Island (California) for the Asian immigrants

17

• At the immigration stations, immigrants had to
  prove
• Where they were coming from
• They did not carry any diseases
• Where they planned on living
• Where they were planning on working

18

• After entering the United States, these
  immigrants quickly moved into cities near family
  and friends.
• Whole neighborhoods were made up of people from a
  single ethnic group
• Ethnic group is a group of people who share the
  same culture or language
• In these neighborhoods, immigrants could live
  their life similar to how they lived it in their
  old country

19

• Often times, these neighborhoods were divided
  from each other simply by
• The language spoken
• The religion practice
• The food sold/eaten
• These neighborhoods were a great comfort to those
  who missed their homeland, but in some ways it
  isolated the immigrants more.
• Some immigrants lived in these neighborhoods and
  never learned how to speak English

20

• People who lived in these neighborhoods usually
  lived in tenements
• Tenements is a poorly built apartment building
• These tenements were often
• Overcrowded
• Unsafe
• Had no windows
• Had no running water

21

• Daily life was difficult for the immigrant
• They worked in unsafe environments with little to
  no pay
• They faced prejudice from people
• who were frightened by the unfamiliar languages
  and customs
• Who believed that the immigrants were going to
  take their jobs

22

• Life became even more difficult for the immigrant
  with the government passing laws against them
• Congress in 1882 passed the Chinese Exclusion Act
  which severely limited the number of Chinese
  immigrants allowed in the country
• Congress in 1924 passed laws that limited the
  number of Europeans allowed in the United States

23

• There were people who tried to help the
  immigrants
• Jane Adams and Ellen Gates Starr opened up Hull
  House in Chicago in 1889 which was a first
  settlement house
• A settlement house is a community center for
  people in cities
• At Hull House, immigrants could
• Learn English
• Get medical care
• Find jobs
• Have child care while the parents worked

24
Growth of the Cities
25

• Immigrants were not the only ones who helped the
  cities to grow large during this time period
• Many farmers who could not make a living on the
  farms moved to the cities
• Cities grew because of its locations near
  transportation routes
• Chicago grew because it was near transportation
  routes, natural resources, and Lake Michigan

26

• Chicago became a big meat packing city because it
  was filled with stockyards
• Stockyards is a fenced are where large numbers of
  animals are kept until they are made into food or
  moved somewhere else
• With the growing cities came new needs for its
  people that seemed positive
• Skyscrapers, or very tall buildings, had to be
  built to house people and businesses
• Chicago had the first skyscraper

27

• Rapid transit, a system to move people around a
  city, had to built
• Street cars and subways came to be thanks to
  electricity
• With the growing cities came new needs for its
  people that seemed negative
• With so many people coming in , slums or poor
  crowded parts of cities, were being build quickly
  and cheaply
• There were major problems with sewage and fresh
  water
• There was so much over crowding that many people
  lived in unsafe areas

28
Time for Reform Making the World a Better Place
29

• It almost felt for a short time we were growing
  too fast in a negative way
• All of the growth lead to
• Too many people living in small areas
• Too many unsafe jobs
• Too little focus on safety and meeting the
  everyday basic needs of people

30

• Progressives, or reformers, got involved to try
  and make life better for most people
• They worked hard to get factories to have better
  working conditions by documenting accidents and
  unsafe working conditions
• They worked on the government to make laws to
  protect workers
• They wrote about the need for change (these were
  considered muckrakers, or someone who points out
  unpleasant truth)

31

• They wrote books about the workers life
• Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle about workers
  in the meatpacking plants
• Some of the progressives actions began to work.
• The government began to pass legislation that was
  to help the workers
• In 1906, Congress and Theodore Roosevelt passed
  the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat
  Inspection Act that stated that medicine and
  foods had to be made without harmful chemicals
  and in factories that were clean

32

• 16th Amendment- allowed Congress to pass an
  income tax which allowed people who earned more
  money pay more of the cost of government (which
  allowed more wage to go to the workers)
• 17th Amendment -allowed citizens to elect
  senators who would work in Congress on their
  behalf
• 18th Amendment- made it against the law to make
  or sell alcoholic beverages which was to reduce
  violence and crime caused by poor workers trying
  to escape their life by drinking

33

• These new laws may have helped the workers and
  made food safer, but there was still a lot of
  injustice that the Progressives felt needed to be
  addressed.
• Progressives began to lobby the government for
  equal rights for women and other racial groups.
• Progressives wanted women to have the right for
  suffrage- or the right to vote.
• Progressives wanted African Americans, Mexican
  Americans, and Native Americans to have racial
  equality

34

• Womens suffrage movement was a movement that had
  women fighting for their right to vote
• Women did marches, wrote speeches, and lobbied
  the government to be allowed to vote
• It worked- the 19th Amendment in 1920 was
  ratified which gave women the right to vote

35

• Fight for Racial Equality was fought for African
  Americans, Mexican Americans, and Native
  Americans who faced prejudice, were not allowed
  to vote, and were forced to send their children
  to segregated schools that were often in poor
  condition.
• W.E.B Du Bois and Booker T. Washington fought for
  African American equality by starting the
  National Association for the Advancement of
  Colored People (NAACP)

36

• They were opposed by the Ku Klux Klan who did not
  like the African Americans leaving the south and
  heading to the north for jobs in the Great
  Migration.
• The Ku Klux Klan would often attack or threaten
  African Americans for no other reason than the
  color of their skin.
• It was worse for those African Americans involved
  in the NAACP as the Ku Klux Klan felt that these
  people should be killed or put in their spot.