Which situation brought about the rapid growth of industry between 1865 and 1900?

1. high worker morale resulting from good wages and working conditions

2. availability of investment capital 3. establishment of western reservations for

Native American Indians 4. decline in the number of people attending

schools

In the decades after the Civil War, the major result of the shift from single proprietorship to corporate organization was that business

was able to

1. make more efficient use of natural resources 2. concentrate on improving the quality of

manufactured goods 3. provide workers with higher wages 4. raise large sums of money

Businesses formed trusts, pools, and holding companies mainly to

1. increase profits by eliminating competition 2. offer a wide range of goods and services to

consumers 3. provide employment opportunities for

minorities 4. protect the interests of workers

A negative effect of holding companies (trusts), mergers, and pools on the United States during the late 19th century was that these combinations

1. encouraged the Federal Government to spend more than its income

2. reduced the need for labor unions 3. decreased competition between businesses 4. ended United States participation in inter-

national trade

The 19th-century philosophy of Social Darwinism maintained that

1. the government should have control over the means of production and the marketplace

2. all social class distinctions in American society should be eliminated

3. economic success comes to those who are the hardest working and most competent

4. wealth and income should be more equally distributed

• The American Beauty Rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working-out of a law of nature and a law of God.– John D Rockefeller

Rise of big business in the Gilded Age (1870s- early 1900s)

• 1870s, 80s- Largest economic growth in history– Pass Britain as world’s #1

• RR- transform the economy• Mechanized farming- massive production of food in the

west• Corporations become the dominate form of business• By 1900 “trusts” dominate steel, oil, sugar, meat and farm

machinery industries (horizontal, vertical integration)• Millions employed- huge era of innovation and inventions

(kerosene, steel, telephone, electricity, running water• Rise of the middle class (wages increase 60%) and wealth

(per capita income #1 in the world)

“Gospel of Wealth”- Industrialists become philanthropists

• Carnegie donates 90% of wealth to charity• Rockefeller- $500,000,000• 1000s of colleges, hospitals, museums,

academies, schools, opera houses, public libraries, charities paid for by industrialists

• Social Darwinism“survival of the fittest” in businessThe most competent businesses would survive and society would benefit from fierce competition• Laissez faire“allow to do”Gov’t should leave business alone to let this take place and not regulate big business

Government actually supports big business:• High tariffs• No immigration restrictions• Subsidizes the railroads

By the end of the 1800s, many began to be critical of the power of big business and the wealth of

industrialists…

According to the cartoons…

• What was the problem with the rise of big business, formation of monopolies and trusts, and the growing power and wealth of industrialists….

– (on back of your cartoon, write down at least three issues the cartoons are critical of)

“What a Funny Little Government”, by Horace Taylor for the September 25, 1899 issue of The Verdict

THE TRUST GIANTS POINT OF VIEW“WHAT A FUNNY LITTLE GOVERNMENT”

Mark Hanna- iron and coalindustrialist

Philip Armour- meatpackingindustrialist

ONE SEES HIS FINISH UNLESS GOOD GOVERNMENT RETAKES THE SHIP

LABOR

“The Standard Oil Octopus”

Joseph Keppler - 1889 political cartoon "The Bosses of the Senate",

“The Protectors of our Industry”1883

Russell Sage- financier andRailroad executive

Cyrus Field- AmericanTelegraph

Company

Jay Gould-Railroad DeveloperAnd speculator

William Henry Vanderbilt- railroads

Samuel Ehrhardt, ‘History Repeats Itself: The Robber Barons of the Middle Ages and the Robber Barons of Today’, Puck, c. 1889

• If you haven’t, please write down 3 specific problems the cartoonists saw with the rise of big business, formation of monopolies and trusts, and the growing power and wealth of industrialists….

• For at least one, write down a possible solution to the problem….

Think of what we covered Friday… refer to your list of complaints on big business from toons… Were the industrialists…

• Robber Barons (CONS) captains of industry? (PROS)

Labor Unions Emerge

Labor Unions Emerge:• Working Conditions:

– Six or seven days a week– 12+ hours– No benefits (vacation, sick time, unemployment, injury)

• Dangers: – injuries common; dangerous equipment– 675 deaths a week in ’82

• Wages: – to survive, women and children often had to work

• child labor: – 20% of boys, 10% of girls work full time- no education

• sweatshops: – done in tenement houses; – women and children (27 cents for 14 hour day- children)

Union Types of workers it organized

Tactics used (strikes, collective bargaining, arbitration)

Goals- types of reforms sought

Level of success?

Knights of Labor

ALL WORKERS (men, women, minorities, immigrants, skilled unskilled)

Mostly arbitration- third party solves dispute

8-hour work dayEqual pay for men and women

Declines after failure of strikes

American Federation of Labor (craft unions)

Skilled workers

LEADER: Samuel Gompers

Collective bargaining- negotiation between labor and managementStrikes used

“bread and butter issues”Higher wagesShorter work weeks

Quite successful

American Railway Union (industrial union)

All workers in a specific industry (railroad)Unskilled, semi-skilled, some skilled

LEADER: Eugene V. Debs

Strikes

Higher wages Declines after failure of a strike

Homestead Strike:• Conditions that led to the strike:

– Announcement to cut wages at Carnegie Steel.• Tactics used by both sides (labor and management):

– Labor: go on strike; attack plant- occupy it and keep it closed

– Management: hires scabs, hires “Pinkertons” (armed guards) to protect plant (9 die)

• Role of the state and/ or federal government: – National Guard sent in to reopen plant

• Outcome of the strike:– after 5 months, union gives in to company; loses public

support; – (45 years until steel workers unionize again)

The Pullman StrikeChicago 1894

Pullman Palace Car Company

• Railway car company owned by George Pullman

• Over 6,000 workers• Workers lived in

“company town”• Rent was 25%

higher than other areas

Interior of a Pullman Sleeper Car

Reasons for the Strike

• Historical Context: Depression of 1893

• Pullman cut workers’ wages but didn’t cut rent for apartments

• On May 10, 1894, workers walked out of their factory

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ARU Supports Pullman Workers

• American Railway Union was a national union of railway workers

• Eugene Debs, ARU leader, decided to support Pullman strikers

• Across the nation, railway workers refused to run trains that had Pullman cars attached to them

• The country was paralyzed

Eugene Debs

Eugene V. Debs, the rail union president at the time of the strike, later campaigned as the American Socialist presidential candidate

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President Grover Cleveland sends in troops

Violence Erupts

• Presence of federal troops set off riots

• Rioters burned buildings

• Troops killed 4 people and wounded 20

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End of Strike

• By August the strike fell apart• 1000 union workers were fired• New workers had to sign contracts

promising not to join a union• Debs was arrested and jailed for 6

months

Which paper sided with which side?• Look for key words or phrases…. That present

different sides of the story…

33

34

35

36

Pullman Strike• Conditions that led to the strike:

– Pullman lays off more than half of work force; cuts pay of rest– Still charges the same for rent

• Tactics used by both sides (labor and management):– Labor: strike called; Debs asks for arbitration; ARU boycotts Pullman trains; go

after strikebreakers (scabs)– Management: hires scabs; refuses arbitration

• Role of the state and/ or federal government: – President Cleveland sends in federal troops to end strike– Courts issue an “injunction” (order) to halt the strike– Debs is arrested for refusing the injunction

• Outcome of the strike:– Pullman fires strikers– Strikers “blacklisted”- no RR company will hire them