APUSH Chapter 24 Cause and Effect

Federal land grants and subsidies

Encouraged the railroads to build their lines across the North American continent.

The building of a transcontinental rail network

Stimulated the growth of a huge unified national market for American manufactured goods.

Corrupt financial dealings and political manipulations by the railroads

Created a public demand for railroad regulation, such as the Interstate Commerce Act.

New developments in steel making, oil refining, and communication

Laid the technological basis for huge new industries and spectacular economic growth.

The ruthless competitive techniques of Rockefeller and other industrialists

Eliminated competition and created monopolistic "trusts" in many industries.

The growing concentration of wealth and power in the new corporate "plutocracy"

Fostered growing class divisions and public demands for restraints on corporate trusts.

The North's use of discriminatory price practices against the South

Kept the South in economic dependency as a poverty-stricken supplier of farm products and raw materials to the Northeast.

The growing mechanization and depersonalization of factory work

Often made laborers feel powerless and vulnerable to their well-off corporate employers.

The Haymarket Square bombing

Helped destroy the Knights of Labor and increased public fear of labor agitation.

The American Federation of Labor's concentration on skilled craft workers

Created a strong but narrowly based union organization.