The Machine Age (1877-1920)

Woolworth’s

• Woolworth’s - one of the very first stores 

  • A&P and Woolworth’s were first chain stores

• Ready-made clothing (department stores) came about by 1900

  • Clothing shifted from being made at home → mass-produced consumer product 

  • Department stores created merchandising revolution 

  • New marketing strategies - freebies, ads, to create brand loyalty

The Corporate Consolidation Movement

• Recurring boom/bust cycles hit economy

• New marketing tricks

• Require extreme efficiency

• Corporate growth expanded stock/bond exchanges, foreign investment, personal savings, & bank investments

• Financiers (J.P. Morgan) assumed new power through strategic investments

• Industrial leaders asserted Social Darwinism and demanded government aid (tariffs, loans)

Social Darwinism

•  “people who are meant to succeed will succeed”

  • Applies natural selection and survival of the fittest to society

JP Morgan

• Financier who merged many companies

  • Like general electric

• Helped re-organize transcontinental railroad systems

  • Owned 15% of railroads at one time

• Helped out failing financial institutions to keep them stable

• Part of a financial group that loaned over $60 million to the U.S. government

Andrew Carnegie

• Scottish immigrant who dominated the steel industry through vertical integration 

• Philanthropist who donated more than $350 million to charities

• Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth and Its Critics: justified his wealth with philanthropy but critics argued that greedy monopolies exploit workers, stifle competition, and corrupt politics

• STEEEEL - became a symbol of transition from rural to industrial nation 

  • Skyscrapers, Brooklyn Bridge

  • Bessemer process 

    • Changing iron → steel

Cornelius Vanderbilt

• Made his early fortunes with steam ships

• Set up & ran the New York Central Railroad

Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)

Example of early big business regulation by the government