CHAPTER 6 A NEW
INDUSTRIAL AGE
Section 1 The
Expansion of
Industry
NATURAL RESOURCES FUEL
INDUSTRIALIZATION
 Several factors to industrial boom: wealth of natural
resources, government support for business, and urban
population growing
 Edwin L. Drake: used the steam engine in drilling process to
increase capacity of oil output
 Bessemer Process: process of Injecting hot air into iron to
make steel which was a stronger material
NATURAL RESOURCES FUEL
INDUSTRIALIZATION
 New uses for Steel: Brooklyn Bridge, skyscrapers, and cars
 Thomas Alva Edison: invented a system of producing and
distributing electricity over greater areas
 Christopher Sholes: invented the typewriter
 Alexander Graham Bell: invented telephone and world wide
communications network
SECTION 2 THE AGE OF
THE RAILROADS
American
History
chapter 6
THE AGE OF THE RAILROADS
 America makes the first transcontinental railroad, it connects
the east and west coast
 Professor C. F. Dowd: invents time zones by dividing up the
earth into 24 time zones
 The railroads puts demands on major manufacturing for the
products from them
 New towns and markets develop along the railroad
 George M. Pullman: Company that produces sleeper cars for
travelers, eventually so big that he makes his own town and
rules
 Credit Mobilier: a construction company that charged two to
three times the actually cost were the owners made the
excess profit.
 The Grange demands government control of the railroad
because of abuses: government land grants and selling excess
for profit, and overcharging cargos to there destinations
 Granger laws: set maximum freight and passenger rates along
with prohibiting discrimination
 Munn v. Illinois: challenges granger laws, Supreme court
upholds the granger laws
 Interstate Commerce Act 1887: Federal government
supervises railroad activities and establishes a five member
commission/interstate commerce commission to regulate
rates
 Panic and Consolidation: many railroads go bankrupt, JP
MORGAN and Company takes over and reorganizes the
railroads.
SECTION 3 BIG
BUSINESS AND LABOR
American
History
chapter 6
BIG BUSINESS AND LABOR
 Andrew Carnegie Steel Company
 Business innovations
 Vertical Integration: a process of buying out his suppliers
needed in his business
 Horizontal Integration: a process of buying out all competitors
and controlled the prices
 Social Darwinism and business
 Social Darwinism: believed in the process of natural selection,
only the strong will survive and live on.
 4000 millionares emerged after the Civil War
 John D. Rockefeller: Standard Oil Company
 Joined competing companies in trust agreements and led his
control of oil industry
 Controlled 90% of the oil refining business
 Critics of these big business people called them
ROBBERBARONS
 Eventually gave away half his fortune to charities and other
foundations: started the Rockefeller foundation
GOVERNMENT, THE SOUTHERN ECONOMY,
AND THE UNIONS
 Sherman Anti-trust act: made it illegal to form a trust that
interfered with free trade between States. The act was hard to
enforce and courts threw out most of the cases
 Southern economy was bypassed by the industrial boom
 Long hours, poor working conditions, and low wages brings
labor unions to form
 National Labor Union, Knights of labor, and Samuel Gompers
American Federation of labor brings dif ferent skilled people to
form unions
 Colored people were not able to join so they formed their own
unions
 Industrial Unions: Eugene V. Debs forms American Railway
Union
 William “Big Bill” Haywood forms Industrial Workers of the
World or the Wobblies
 All strike in protest of better working conditions
GREAT STRIKES
 The Great Strike of 1877: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad protest
2 nd wage cut in a month, the strike turns violent
 The Haymarket Af fair: Protest of police brutality turns violent
after someone from the protesters tossed a bomb into the
crowd.
 The Homestead Strike: At Carnegie steel plant in Pennsylvania
about bad working conditions, the Pinkerton Detective Agency
was there to protect plant and workers who were still on the
job, it turns violent
 Pullman Company Strike: After cutting workers and wages,
workers went on strike, and he hired strikebreakers. This
clash between workers and strikers turned violent.
 Women organize under Mary Harris Jones (Mother Jones) to
protect women and child labor
 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire: Brings government into reform
labor and conditions. Workers were locked in building with no
way to escape.
 Many factories forced workers to sign Yellow Dog Contracts
(workers could not join labor unions).
 Unions would continue to grow throughout the century.