The Gilded Age

1
The Gilded Age

• Growth of Big Business

2
Economic Expansion

• Developments during Civil War
• Full Employment
• Standardization
• Plentiful Raw Materials
• Growing Population
• Investment Capital
• Limited Government Interference

3
Railroads

• Knit the Country together
• Communication
• Transportation
• Goods, People
• Land Grants
• Encouraged Expansion
• Time Zones

4
(No Transcript)
5
Railroads (2)

• Large Owners
• Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroad developer,
  Vanderbilt founder)
• James J. Hill (railroads)
• Leland Stanford
• (with railroad, founded Stanford)
• Transcontinental Railroad (1869)
• Union Pacific, Central Pacific

6
Oil Industry

• First Oil Well
• Edwin Drake
• Pennsylvania (1859)
• J. D. Rockefeller
• Standard Oil (1879)
• 90 of Oil Industry
• Horizontal Integration
• (owns all oil)

7
Steel Industry

• Henry Bessemer
• Bessemer Process
• Andrew Carnegie
• Vertical Integration
• (own all parts of steel industry)
• 1901
• J.P. Morgan
• US Steel

8
Other Developments

• Communication
• Telegraph, Telephone
• (Alexander Bell, American Telephone Telegraph)
• Electricity Most Important
• Thomas Edison
• Lightbulb
• Food Processing
• Meatpacking, canning

9
Other Developments (2)

• Mail Order Catalogues
• Sears and Roebuck
• Railroads
• Refrigerated Cars
• Pullman Company- George Pullman
• (factored railroad cars, invented sleeping car)
• -Automobile becoming more effective, and
  increasing standard of living and creates more
  jobs.

10
Captains of Industry

• Ex. Carnegie, Rockefeller, Stanford, Morgan, etc.
• Huge Profits
• Domination of Industries
• Benefit from and promote economic growth
• Social Darwinism

11
Robber Barons

• Take advantage of Workers
• Unskilled
• Low wage, high risk jobs, long hours
• Take advantage of Consumers
• Monopolies, pools, trusts
• Ex. Long haul v. Short haul

12
(No Transcript)
13
Philanthropists

• Donate personal wealth
• Gospel of Wealth
• Universities
• Carnegie-Mellon
• Arts
• Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall
• Public Interests
• Carnegie Foundation

14
Government Regulation

• Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
• Outlawed unfair pricing
• Railroad rates must be reasonable
• Created Interstate Commerce Commission
• Little enforcement power
• Sherman Anti-trust Act (1890)
• Banned combinations in restraint of trade

15
Government Regulation (2)

• More successful on State level
• Munn v. Illinois (1876)
• May regulate in public interests
• Supreme Court typically sides with business
• Wabash v. Illinois (1886)
• States may NOT regulate interstate commerce
• US v. E.C. Knight

16
The Gilded Age

• Rise of Organized Labor

17
Pre-Civil War

• Few attempts at nation-wide unions
• Most fail
• Others ineffective
• Trade (or Craft) Unions
• Local, Small-scale unions
• More successful

18
Post-Civil War

• Expansion of industry changed labor conditions
• Business attitudes changed
• Workers now part of the machine
• Led to growth of stronger, larger, more effective
  unions

19
Labor Conditions

• Skilled Workers
• Highly trained
• Difficult to replace, Higher wage earners
• Mechanization began to replace them
• Unskilled Workers
• Require little training
• Easier to replace, lower wages

20
Business Attitude to Labor

• Cheaper is better
• Keep wages low
• Maximize profits
• Fire agitators
• Discourage organization
• Hire immigrants

21
Formation of Labor Unions

• Basic Goals of all Unions
• Higher wages, better conditions, fewer hours
• Public Opinions
• Working class
• Supportive
• Middle and Upper Class
• Hostile

22
Tools of Labor Unions

• Strike
• Violent
• Sabotage
• Work slowdowns
• Collective Bargaining

23
Tools of Businesses

• Yellow-dog contracts
• Lockouts
• Blacklist
• Strikebreakers
• Pinkertons Security
• Scabs
• Government Involvement
• Police, Army
• Sherman Antitrust Act
• Injunctions

24
National Labor Union

• 1866
• Skilled workers, unskilled workers, and farmers
• Peak membership of 600,000
• Collapse around 1872
• Divisions within members
• Lack of effective leadership
• Depression of 1870s

25
Knights of Labor

• 1869
• Terence Powderly
• Skilled and Unskilled Workers
• Peak Membership 1,000,000
• Goals
• 8-hour day, health and safety laws, end of child
  labor, equal pay (men/women, whites/blacks),
  government ownership of telegraph, telephone, and
  railroads

26
Knights of Labor (2)

• Collapse
• 1886
• May 4
• Haymarket Square, Chicago
• Protest police brutality against strikers
• Anarchist
• The Knights are linked to radicalism
• Support and Membership decline rapidly

27
Anti-Union Sentiment

• Linked with radical, political groups
• Socialists, Communists, Anarchists
• Violent Protests
• Damage union reputations
• Newspapers tend to be unfavorable

28
American Federation of Labor

• 1886
• Samuel Gompers
• Bread-and-butter Unionism
• 8-hour day, Higher wages, Safer conditions
• Skilled Workers
• Avoid political involvement
• By 1900, 500,000 members
• No Immigrants, no blacks

29
Gilded Age

• New American ideal policies
• Rise of Political machines
• Growth of industrializing
• Prosperity, with corruption and ROOM TO GROW.