GPS 11 – 14 (#’s 99 – 139)

Industrialization, Westward

Expansion, Progressive Era, and

Imperialism

• Andrew Carnegie dominated the steel industry.

• By using the Bessemer process, he could produce steel much cheaper than before and as a result, it became more affordable.

• This led to faster expansion of the railroads and more construction – thanks to steel, buildings could be taller which allowed cities like New York to hold more people and industry even though land was limited.

• Steel was important to the economy and before the railroads, heavy things had to be carried by water and travel was limited to the route of the river, lake, or ocean.

• As railroads expanded, they became the practical and economical way to ship sizeable products – because of their ability to carry goods and resources great distances in a timely fashion, railroads became a major contributor to the growth of business – made possible by steel.

• Vertical integration – a business strategy in which one

corporation owns not only the company that produces the

finished product, but also the companies that provide the

materials necessary for production.

• Monopolies: a market in which there is only

one supplier of a product and no market

competition.

• Trust: a business arrangement under

which a number of companies unite into

one system. In effect, trust serve to destroy

competition and create monopolies.

• Rockefeller made it big in the oil business and his

company, Standard Oil, was the nation’s first trust.

• Through the trust, Rockefeller was able to dictate prices,

eliminate competition, and control the US oil industry.

Much of his success was due to his masterful use of

vertical integration.

• Rather than pay other producers to supple the materials

needed, Rockefeller’s company made what it needed

itself – such as its own barrels, cans, and other items.

• 1862, Congress coordinated an effort among the railroad

companies to build a transcontinental railroad.

• Union Pacific (east) and Central Pacific (Sacramento,

CA) joined their tracks at Promontory, Utah, in 1869.

• Railroads played a major role in the industrial growth and

expansion.

• They made life out West possible by allowing farmers,

ranchers, and other settlers access to eastern markets

and resources.

• RR’s also made it easier for people to move west and

populate territories at a rapid rate.

• The completion of the transcontinental railroad would not

have been possible without the contribution of thousands

of Irish and Chinese immigrants.

• These immigrants often worked under very dangerous

conditions.

• Also, attacks from hostile Native Americans were always

a possibility.

• Railroad workers labored in the blistering heat of summer

months and freezing snowstorms during winter while their

employers paid them very little.

• Chinese workers were often the victims of racism and

abuse.

• Railroads played a major role in the industrial growth and

expansion.

• They made life out West possible by allowing farmers,

ranchers, and other settlers access to eastern markets

and resources.

• RR’s also made it easier for people to move west and

populate territories at a rapid rate.

• Phonograph: which recorded sound.

• Motion-picture camera: that would eventually make

movies possible.

• He is most remembered for this invention of the electric

light bulb.

• The electric light bulb transformed how people lived and

conducted business.

• Before electric light bulbs, people were limited to working

only during daylight hours, or by the dim light of oil-

burning lamps.

• Light bulbs provided much more light than oil lamps and

meant that people could work and do more after dark in

factories, offices, and homes.

• Edison also came up with idea of central power

companies that proved electrical power to large numbers

of customers.

• Tiny island near the Statue of Liberty

in New York that became a well-

known reception center for immigrants

arriving by ship.

• Before the Civil War, most immigrants tended to come

from Western Europe.

• Towards the end of the 19th century and into the early

20th, more and more immigrants arrived from Eastern and

Southern Europe – places like Poland, Italy, and Russia.

• The U.S. was envisioned as a “melting pot” where people of all back grounds could come and assimilate into American society.

• In reality, most immigrants did not fully assimilate and maintained many of their traditional ways.

• The nation, particularly in large cities, began to experience cultural pluralism which is the presence of many different cultures within one society.

• While immigration had positive effects, such as providing much needed labor for the nation’s factories, it also presented problems because many US citizens looked on immigrants negatively.

• They felt that immigrants took jobs away from native born Americans and religious differences were also a source of tension.

• An early influential labor union which

focused on such issues as wages, working

hours, and working conditions.

• The AFL used economic pressures of

strikes and boycotts.

• The AFL also believed in collective

bargaining and mediation.

• Early leader of the AFL.

• As settlers and fur trappers settled into the west, they

killed great numbers of buffalo for their hides and to

make way for ranchers and their herds of cattle; the

Plains Indians greatly depended on the buffalo for their

livelihood and could no longer continue their way of life.

• Many Native American tribes were forced to relocate to

reservations.

• Over time, many Native Americans grew bitter, and a

number of violent wars broke out – Battle of Little Bighorn

or “Custer’s Last Stand” and Wounded Knee.

• Sitting Bull was the leader of the Sioux.

• The last notable armed conflict b/t US troops and Native Americans occurred at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, after a Sioux holy man name Wovoka developed a religious ritual called the Ghost Dance.

• The Sioux believed that this dance would bring back the buffalo, return the Native American tribes to their land, and banish the white man from the earth.

• Believing that the Sioux leader, Sitting Bull, was using the Ghost Dance to start a Native American uprising, the government sent in the US army.

• When soldiers tried to arrest Sitting Bull, a gunfight resulted in the deaths of 14 people, including Sitting Bull; soldiers then pursued the Sioux to Wounded Knee Creek.

• When a shot rang out, soldiers started firing, and more than 150 Native American men, women, and children – most of whom were unarmed – lay dead.

• In 1894, a delegation of employees went to railroad-car

industrialists, George Pullman, to protest the laying off of

workers.

• Pullman responded by firing three of the labor representatives,

leading the local union to go on strike.

• Pullman then closed the plant, rather than negotiate with union

leaders.

• Led by Eugene Debs, the American Railway Union called for a

boycott of Pullman cars nationwide and 120,000 workers had

rallied to strike.

• Because the strike affected shipment of the US mail, the

federal government responded with a court injunction to end

the strike and President Grover Cleveland sent troops to make

sure it was enforced.

• Days later, the strike was over and this established a

precedence for factory owners appealing to the courts to end

strikes.

• Famous “muckraker” who published a novel called The

Jungle in 1906.

• The book horrified readers as it uncovered the truth

about the US meatpacking industry.

• Its impact helped lead to the creation of a federal meat-

inspection program.

• Nicknamed the “mother of social work”, Jane Addams

opened Hull House as a settlement house in Chicago.

• Settlement houses were houses establish in poor

neighborhoods, where social activists would live and from

which they would offer assistance to immigrants and

underprivileged citizens.

• By 1910, there were more than 400 settlement houses in

the US.

• Hull House served as a launching pad for investigations

into economic, political, and social conditions in the city.

• It also provided needed help and education for the poor

and immigrants, and eventually helped fight for and win

new child labor laws and other legislation meant to help

those in need.

• Helped establish the National American Woman Suffrage

Association.

• Delivered the “Declaration of Sentiments” at the Seneca

Falls Convention of 1848 which was the first women’s

rights convention in US History.

• In it, she called for the suffrage (right to vote) for women.

• These laws required the segregation of blacks and whites

following Reconstruction in the South. They were not

allowed to share public spaces.

• They could not sit in the same dining rooms as

restaurants, were not to share railway cars, and were

restricted from using the same public facilities.

• In 1896, the Supreme Court upheld segregation and Jim

Crow Laws in its decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.

• The case involved a 30-yr-old man named Homer Plessy

who was one-eighth African American and was said to

violate a Louisiana law by sitting in a “whites only” railway

car.

• After being arrested, he eventually sued, claiming the law

was unconstitutional.

• After considering the case, the Supreme Court ruled that

segregation was lawful as long as the separate facilities

and services were equal.

• This case set the precedent that segregation was legal,

so long as separate facilities held to the standard of

“separate but equal”.

• National Association for the Advancement of Colored

People

• It was founded as an organization devoted itself to the

progress of the African American community during the

early 20th century and remains a prominent political voice

among the African American community.

• W.E.B DuBois helped organize a group of black

intellectuals known as the Niagara Movement and was

instrumental in founding the NAACP.

• A “muckraker” who revealed the abuses of the Standard

Oil Trust.

• Writers of the Progressive Era who exposed scandal and

corruption in US businesses and government.

• They were labeled “muckrakers” by President Roosevelt

because they stirred up and uncovered much of the

“muck” in US society.

• Reformers from the late 19th and early 20th century that

called for political, social, and economic change.

• Progressives tended to be white, middle-class

Protestants and believed that things could be made

better through government regulation of society.

• They called for more regulation of business, improved

wages for workers, regulations over work environments,

laws governing morality, defined standards for education,

and stricter regulation of professions like doctors,

teachers, and lawyers.

• The progressives raged against the upper class as being

exploiters of the poor and slaves to self-indulgence.

• INITIATIVE allowed citizens of a state to force a vote on a

certain issue without having to wait for public officials to

bring it up. If enough citizens signed a petition and/or

made their voices heard, then the legislature could be

compelled to address a particular concern.

• The RECALL gave citizens the power to hold special

elections to remove corrupt officials from office before

their terms were up.

• The REFERENDUM meant that public officials would be

elected by popular vote, rather than by party bosses or

state legislatures.

• Men, women, and children often had to work long hours

in dangerous conditions for very little pay.

• Eventually, reformers succeeded in convincing a number

of states to pass minimum age laws (12 – 16 yrs-old)

which set limits on how young employees could be.

• Some states passed laws restricting the hours and

occupations in which women could work.

• Legislatures also passed laws restricting work hours and

requiring safer working conditions.

• One event that especially contributed to the call for better

workplace safety was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

• One of the key figures in this reform movement was

Jacob Riis, an immigrant from Denmark, who wrote “How

the Other Half Lives”. The book exposed the horrible

conditions under which immigrants worked and lived.

• His writings revealed the cramped space, filthy

conditions, and often dangerous hazards that existed in

inner-city tenements (small, low-income apartments lived

in and often shared by more than one family).

• Riis’ efforts contributed largely to New York passing its

first laws aimed at improving urban tenements.

• Theodore Roosevelt was a life-long naturalist, who majored in Natural History at Harvard, and an avid hunter.

• Roosevelt saw the continued despoliation of land for timbering and mining would result in the loss of key habitat needed for hunting and future economic development.

• Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt increased national reserves of forests, mineral lands, and hydropower sites.

• During his tenure in office, Roosevelt created the National Forest Service, five new national parks, 18 new U.S. national monuments, 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 national forests. This also encouraged states to follow the lead of the national government.

• An 1882 law which prohibited further immigration from

China to the US for 10 years. Eventually , the act was

extended and remained in effect until 1943.

• Chinese and Irish immigrants played a major role in

opening the West to US expansion often working under

dangerous conditions as they provided much of the labor

that built the nation’s western railroads.

• In the 1870’s, depression hit the west coast of the US

hard.

• People in places like San Francisco began to resent the

cheap labor that Chinese immigrants offered and the fact

that they had to compete with these immigrants for jobs.

• As a result, racism and even acts of violence against

Chinese immigrants increased.

• US and Cuban rebels vs. Spain

• Officially began as a result of the sinking of the USS Maine while anchored in a Cuban harbor. Immediately, newspapers blamed Spain, and US citizens demanded war.

• Congress adopted a resolution declaring war on Spain in April 1898.

• In less than 3 months, the US had defeated Spain in both Cuba and the Philippines.

• John Hay, the future Secretary of State and good friend of Theodore Roosevelt, captured what most felt regarding the entire conflict when he referred to taking of the Philippines as a “splendid little war”.

• Cuba and the Philippines (Spanish Colony)

• Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico

• Many business leaders and politicians believed that US

expansion was important because it would provide the

country with more economic markets and greater

potential for economic growth – Panama Canal Zone.

• Others backed imperialism because they felt that the US

needed to expand in order to maintain its national

security.

• By the 1900s, the US was becoming a major player in world affairs.

• In 1904, President Roosevelt issued the “Roosevelt Corollary” – a statement which expanded upon the Monroe Doctrine.

• Monroe had said that the US would not allow European powers to colonize newly independent nations in the Western hemisphere, nor would the US interfere with such nations.

• Roosevelt modified this by saying that the US had the right to intervene in the region, if a nation had trouble paying its debts.

• This doctrine became known as Roosevelt’s “big stick policy” (“Speak softly and carry a big stick”) meaning that the US did not intend to be a threating presence in the Western Hemisphere, but neither would it hesitate to

• Following the assassination of President McKinley in

1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th president.

• In order to enable US ships to move more quickly b/t the

Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Roosevelt envisioned a

canal across the isthmus of Panama; it would serve US

military and economic interests allowing ships to go back

and forth b/c the Atlantic and Pacific without having to go

around S. America.

• The Columbian president refused to sell or lease the

land.

• In 1903, the Panamanian people revolted against the

Columbians and with US support, they won their

independence.

• The land was then leased to the US and construction