The Rise of Industrial America

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The Rise of Industrial America the City
1865-1900 Chapter 2
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My Questions

• How are the robber baron and captain of industry
  perspectives different from each other?
• How did industrialization change work in America?
• How did technology change work on the farm?
• How did skyscrapers and electricity affect the
  city?

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Big Business and Millionaires

• After the Civil War, big businesses boomed giving
  rise to more millionaires and wealth than ever
  before in American history.
• The railroad, steel, and oil industries expanded
  the most resulting in three of the most prominent
  millionaires in American History.
• The Railroad Industry and Jay Gould
• The Steel Industry and Andrew Carnegie
• Standard Oil and Nelson Rockefeller

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Jay Gould Railroad Tycoon
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Andrew Carnegie and Carnegie Steel
Andrew Carnegie Carnegie Steel
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Rockefeller Standard Oil
Rockefeller Standard Oil
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Robber Baron vs. Captain of Industry

• Gould, Carnegie, and Rockefeller have been
  considered throughout history as either robber
  barons or captains of industry.
• The robber baron perspective claims that these
  businessmen only looked to gain huge profits for
  themselves while ensuring their competitors and
  their workers would remain poor.
• On the other hand, the captains of industry
  perspective claims that these businessmen moved
  America to the very top of the business world and
  without them the United States would have lagged
  behind economically.

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The Importance of Industrialism

• The rise of these big businesses, often referred
  to as Industrialism, resulted in more than just a
  few millionaires who profited greatly.
• Most importantly, American Industrialism, changed
  who was doing the work and where it was being
  done.
• Work in America would now be found in cities
  instead of rural areas.
• Also because big businessmen preferred cheaper
  labor, most American workers were now unskilled
  and predominantly immigrants.

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The Growth of Cities

• The last three decades of the 19th century
  experienced an urban explosion.
• Chicago expanded from 100,000 people in 1860 to
  over a million in 1890! L.A. went from 5,000
  residents to 100,000 in the same time span!
• By 1900, thirty-eight American cities had over
  100,000 people, up from just eighteen cities in
  1870.
• So why were the cities populations exploding?

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Industrialization Creates Global Migration

• Looking for jobs and adventure, poor, rural
  farmers from both the United States and around
  the world headed to the cities.
• Cheap transportation by both train and steamship
  motivated rural workers to relocate to cities
  with industrial jobs.

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Changes in Farming

• In 1870, 80 of America lived on farms. By 1900,
  just 66 lived on a farm. Why did this occur?
• After the Civil War, farms lost many of their
  workers.
• Hundreds of thousands of farming men died in the
  Civil War and those who survived often moved to
  the city to find work in city factories.
• With less help in the fields, devoted farmers
  turned to technology and specialized, commercial
  farms.

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New Agricultural Technology

• New steel plows and reapers made it two times
  faster to farm and required less workers.
• Mechanical combines could reap twenty acres of
  wheat a day, which would have required the work
  of 20 men in the past.
• As a result, farmers who used new technology not
  only could farm more land, but they did not have
  to pay as many workers.

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Harvests Multiply

• Harvests multiplied using new technology.
• Farmers were able to produce
• four times the corn
• five times the hay
• and seven times the wheat and oats.

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Women Leaving The Farm

• Because farming increasingly became mechanized,
  men found little use of female workersincluding
  their own family memberssince they did not trust
  them with new equipment.
• So young farmwomen flocked to cities and
  typically found work in sweatshops sewing and
  making mass-produced crafts.

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Technology for the City

• New forms of technology also allowed cities to
  grow.
• The creation of mechanized assembly lines and
  electrical motors made city factories more
  efficient.
• Because these factories now had the capability to
  produce more manufactured goods they were always
  looking to hire new people.
• With lots of jobs to offer, factories attracted
  hordes of men, women, and children to cities.

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Technology for the City Continued

• One of the most important innovations of this era
  for cities was the skyscraper.
• Before skyscrapers, the tallest buildings in most
  large cities were actually churches, which only
  went up a few hundred feet.
• But starting in the 1880s, cities like Chicago
  and New York began to build these towering
  structures made of stronger steel.
• With businessmen competing over valuable urban
  space, the skyscraper allowed the city to grow
  upward instead of taking up space on the ground.

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Question What invention needed to be perfected
before people were comfortable working in
skyscrapers?
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Electricity The City

• One of the major reasons people decided to move
  to cities was the availability of electrical
  power in urban areas.
• Thomas Edison, probably the most important
  inventor of all time, typically worked 20 hours a
  day at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
• At the height of his career, he averaged one
  invention every 11 days!

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Electricity The City Continued

• However, probably the most important thing that
  Edison did was promote the use of electricity as
  a power source and come up with a cheaper,
  practical light bulb.
• Edisons light bulbs lighted homes, apartments,
  factories, and office buildings.
• Electricity was so prevalent in cities that the
  two became linked together.
• Since less than 10 of farms had electricity, one
  of the reasons many people moved to the city was
  to enjoy the benefits of electricity.