Rise of Big Business in America

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Rise of Big Business in America What you really
need to know

• When / how did big multi state businesses emerge?
• What key social and economic concepts shaped the
  rise of big business?
• Who were the robber barons what makes them so
  significant?
• What were some of the results and criticisms of
  the new industrial America, and what forms did
  these criticisms take?
• Who were the muckrakers and what impact did they
  have?

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• it is your duty to get rich, it is wrong to be
  poor Russel Conwell
• "The problem of our age is the proper
  administration of wealth, so that the ties of
  brotherhood may still bind together the rich and
  poor in harmonious relationship. Andrew
  Carnegie
• "I believe the power to make money is a gift of
  God. . . . I believe it is my duty to make money
  and still more money and to use the money I make
  for the good of my fellow man according to the
  dictates of my conscience." J. D. Rockefeller
• I aimed at Americas heart, but I think I hit
  them in the stomach
• Upton Sinclair 1906
• THE principal object of management should be to
  secure the maximum prosperity for the employer,
  coupled with the maximum prosperity for each
  employee. Frederick Taylor 1911

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Rise of Industrialism Stats

• 1869 1913 GNP Rose 56 Percent
• 1865 US 4th Behind GB, FR, Ger
• 1900 US 1st
• 1900 US largest Petroleum Producer
• 150,000 miles of RR 1865- 1895
• 1910 US 33 of all manufactures in World

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What made the expansion of businesses possible?

• Industrial revolution in general
• Expansion of transportation network
• Civil War realization of necessities
• Scientific Processes / Scientific Management
• By 1900 US free from major domestic security
  concerns
• Gov protections (tariffs, land, tax breaks)
• Immigration
• Foreign Investment
• Increase of Stock Companies
• Close of Frontier / Turners Thesis

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Who were the Robber Barons?

• Rockefeller
• Stanford
• Carnegie
• Morgan
• Hearst
• Vanderbilt

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Concepts

• Social Darwinism
• Laissez Faire
• Gospel of Wealth
• Vertical Integration
• Horizontal Integration
• Scientific Management (Taylor)

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Results / Reactions

• Increased urbanization
• Plight of urban poor
• Rich v. poor gap
• 100 bill cigar lighters
• Rise of middle management
• Union Busting (Homestead Strike)
• Increased fear of communism / anarchists
• Gospel of Wealth Morality of Philanthropy

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The chart shows the share of the richest 10
percent of the American population in total
income an indicator that closely tracks many
other measures of economic inequality over the
past 90 years, as estimated by the economists
Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.
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Anti Trust - Reform

• Sherman Act
• Roosevelt
• Progressives
• Muckrakers
• Tarbell
• Sinclair
• McClures
• Riis
• Steffens

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Labor Organizations _at_1900all we want, is more
S. Gompers

• Reaction to Big Business
• Europe at same time
• Homestead Strike
• Knights of Labor Utopian / Universal
• Haymarket Bombing
• AF of L Skilled workers, realistic, Gompers
  (Capitalist)
• IWW Debs, Socialists
• Eventual Red Scare hurts labor
• Pullman Strike

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Immigration Traps and Misconceptions

• Huge percentage came illegally
• Illegal immigrants pay taxes
• Dont forget Angel Island / West Coast
• Dont forget Mexico
• Many immigrants were wealthy
• Up to 40 planned on re-migration
• 25 did re-migrate
• US was not the only target of Immigration
• Numerically today is greater wave of immigration
• Percentage today is only slightly behind the late
  19th Century Boom

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US at 1900 Urbanization of America Key
Questions

• Why did cities get so big? What challenges went
  with that growth?
• How did Political Machines influence urban life?
• What was life like for new urban dwellers?

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Boss Tweed

• I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles,
  my constituents don't know how to read, but they
  can't help seeing them damned pictures. I don't
  care who does the electing, so long as I get to
  do the nominating.

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Push and Pull Factors on Urbanization

• Growth of business / jobs, new jobs
• Transportation makes food available
• Fewer farming jobs available
• Romance of the big city / Success Stories
• Immigrant entry points
• Cosmopolitan culture
• Brings Challenges
• Social Services, Fire, Police, Sanitation,
  Education, Public Health, Roads, Fuel,
  Refrigeration, Storage

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Political Machines and the City

• Local versions of political parties, sponsored
  candidates etc
• Exchange of favors for votes
• Prey on immigrants
• Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed, GW Plunkitt

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Combo of Urb / Immig / Labor etc leads to the
Progressives

• Generally defined 1901-1918
• Loose grouping of reform movements and their
  leaders
• Gathered steam after TR comes in
• Muckrakers were early examples
• Prohib, Suffrage, Af Am rights, Immig rights,
  worker rights all loosely Progressive
• Attitude of progress
• Why so many women?
• Very middle class oriented Goal is to make
  everyone look like mid class / share mid class
  values
• Ex Settlement Houses classes on
  Americanization

1906
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Progressive Highlights

• Teddy Roosevelt Square Deal / Trustbusting
• Muckrakers
• Jane Addams / Florence Kelley / Hull House
• NAWSA
• NAACP
• Was progressivism really progressive?
• Progress implies problem?
• Who decides?
• OK to change peoples values?
• Central park v. Coney Island
• Limit working hours v. maximize earning potential
• Melting pot v. salad bowl?

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Baxter Street Alley in Mulberry Bend (Riis)
Court at 24 Baxter Street (Riis)
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Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt

• Post CW Generation
• Self Created
• Cowboy Image
• Sec Navy / Rough Riders
• VP Candidate / Ascends
• Panama / Big Stick
• Roosevelt Corollary
• Progressivism / Square Deal Trust Busting /
  Muckrakers
• Conservation / National Parks
• Assertion of Presidential power
• Selection of Taft
• Later Progressive / Bull Moose Campaign

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Foreign Policy Before WWI

• McKinley / Roosevelt Start of Imperialism
• Competing with Europe
• Imperialism mostly as good thing
• Big Stick / Roosevelt Corollary
• Span AM War , Panama, R/J War, Venezuela
• Taft Dollar Diplomacy
• Wilson Theoretically less aggressive, actually
  more so
• Haiti
• Mexico
• WWI
• US must not be seen as weak

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Circa 1900 Life for African Americans3 Main Ideas

• Remember Plessy v. Ferguson, Lynching, Rise of
  KKK,
• Northern Migration
• Discrimination
• African American Response
• Cultural Response
• 1920s Harlem Renaissance
• Political Reaction

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Ida B. Wells (Barnett)

• Outspoken journalist / activist
• Specifically vocal on anti-lynching
• Accusatory (toward north non-action)

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Booker T. Washington

• Heir to F. Douglass?
• Tuskegee Institute
• Vocational Schools
• Need to earn rights
• Gradualism

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Marcus Garvey

• 1920s version of Bishop Henry Turner
• Re-Colonization Movement
• Garvey-ites

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W.E.B. DuBois

• PhD
• NAACP
• The Crisis
• The Talented Tenth
• The problem of the 20th Century is that of the
  color line

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1920s African Americans6 Specifics

• Jim Crow
• Lynching
• Booker T. Washington
• Marcus Garvey
• W.E.B. DuBois
• Harlem Renaissance

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