us history topic 3

What marked the first Industrial Revolution vs. the second (c. 1850s on)?

First: steam power, factory system, coal and iron. Second: steel, oil, and electricity. It began in British textiles in the 1700s.

How did the Civil War boost Northern industry?

It pushed factories to make guns, ammunition, supplies, and uniforms faster; food processing, railroads, and power methods improved; the government encouraged immigration for labor.

Which natural resources fueled U.S. growth?

Coal (fuel for locomotives and factories), forests (lumber), iron ore (to iron, then steel), and navigable rivers for transport.

Edwin Drake, 1859?

Used a steam engine to drill the first successful oil well, near Titusville, PA. Oil replaced scarce whale blubber, was cheap and easy to move, and spawned kerosene and gasoline industries.

Where did steel centers form and why?

Pittsburgh and others, as iron ore came by boat across the Great Lakes from Minnesota. Steel rails let railroads bring distant resources to eastern factories.

Why did the workforce grow after the Civil War?

Immigrants (pushed by upheaval, religious discrimination, crop failures) arrived: about 750,000 in 1881 and nearly 1 million a year by 1905. They accepted low wages and moved often. Droughts and foreign competition also sent farmers to cities in the 1890s.

Horatio Alger and Ragged Dick (1868)?

Alger’s novel told of a poor boy rising to wealth through hard work, stressing that anyone could go from poverty to success (“rags to riches”).

Define capitalism.

An economic system in which individuals own most businesses.

Define entrepreneur.

A person who builds and manages a business to make a profit, investing time and/or money and risking their livelihood.

Define free enterprise.

The freedom to run a business for profit with minimal regulation beyond what protects the public interest. Competition pushed entrepreneurs to raise efficiency, cut costs, and lower prices.

Define laissez-faire.

Government policy of minimal regulation of business. With strong property-rights laws it gave businesses predictability and security, encouraging investment. Downside: sometimes poor workplace conditions.

What are protective tariffs?

Taxes that make imported goods cost more than U.S.-made goods, promoting the buying of American products.

How did government help railroad builders?

It gave them millions of acres of land in return for promising to quickly link the East and West coasts.

Define patent.

A federal grant giving an inventor the exclusive right to develop, use, and sell an invention for a set time. Patents rose rapidly in this era.

Thomas Edison’s contributions?

Set up a research lab at Menlo Park, NJ (1876) with J.P. Morgan’s backing; his team invented the light bulb (after testing thousands of materials) and planned central power plants to light city sections.

George Westinghouse’s contributions?

Technology to send electricity over long distances; air brakes for trains (patented 1869).

How did electricity improve life?

Lit streets, homes, and factories, extending the hours Americans could work and play.

Samuel Morse (1844)?

Perfected the telegraph, sending messages over wire.

Alexander Graham Bell (1876)?

Patented the telephone. By 1900 there were over 1 million phones and 100,000+ miles of telegraph wire.

Guglielmo Marconi (1896)?

Invented the wireless telegraph; entrepreneurs built on it to develop radio.

What is the Bessemer process?

Developed by Henry Bessemer in 1850s England: purifies iron into strong, lightweight steel. The U.S. adopted it and outproduced Britain by 1890.

What did cheap steel make possible?

Skyscrapers and elevators, and suspension bridges (roadway hung from steel cables). The Brooklyn Bridge (1883) was the first suspension bridge and then the world’s longest.

Railroad innovators: Westinghouse, Granville Woods, Gustavus Swift?

Westinghouse: air brakes (1869). Woods (African American): telegraph system for trains (1887). Swift: refrigerated rail cars.

What are time zones and why were they created?

In 1884 delegates from 27 countries divided the globe into 24 zones. Towns had set clocks independently, making train schedules hard; railroads adopted the system.

How did transportation change where people lived?

Electric streetcars, commuter trains, and subways let people live outside the city and commute. Gas-powered cars began factory production in 1902; the Wright brothers launched aeronautics.

What was the “upward spiral” of growth?

Railroads moved goods cheaply and linked markets, so factory output generated more factory output (e.g., glass for rail cars needing freight cars, which need fuel shipped by rail).

Define mass production.

Systems using machinery to do tasks once done by hand tools, turning out large numbers of products quickly and cheaply.

Frederick Taylor?

Studied the flow of work and workers to develop industrial management systems for the most efficient use of machinery.

Why was the South slow to industrialize?

Needed to repair war damage; lacked labor and capital (the “three-legged stool” with natural resources); least education spending, few technical schools; low wages; few, weak banks; wealth held by a few.

Henry Grady and the “New South”?

Atlanta editor who urged the South to use its resources to build industry and a diversified economy, not rely on slavery-era agriculture.

How did the New South industrialize?

Northern investors backed textile mills in NC, SC, GA, plus cigar and lumber; coal, iron, and steel built Nashville and Birmingham; railroads joined cities; smaller farms replaced plantations.

Define cash crop. Why was cotton risky?

A crop grown to sell, not use. Cotton prices fell after the war as Europe found other suppliers and oversupply grew; the boll weevil (Texas, 1890s) cut yields over 50% in some states.

How did industrialization affect world markets and land?

By the 1880s U.S. grain, steel, and textile exports dominated; by 1900 the U.S. had almost as much track as the rest of the world. Environmental concern grew: Yellowstone (1872) was the first national park in the world.

How did daily life change?

Mechanized farms needed fewer laborers, so people moved to cities. Mass-produced goods were easy to buy, but costs of living were higher, workers relied on cash wages, and factory work was repetitive.

Why did corporations form?

Railroads widened markets, and one family could not fund or run a larger business. A corporation shares ownership among many investors.

Advantages of a corporation?

Investors lose no more than they invested; it has an individual’s legal rights (buy/sell property, sue); shares can be sold; access to huge capital; can operate across regions with railroads and telegraph.

How did corporations maximize profits?

Wide advertising, low wages, cheap raw materials, integration, production-management efficiencies, and research labs (like J.P. Morgan’s).

Define cartel.

Businesses making the same product agree to limit production to keep prices high.

Define monopoly.

Complete control of a product or service, often by buying or driving out competitors.

Define horizontal integration.

Merging many competing firms in the same business into one giant company to lower costs, often to gain a monopoly. Downside: workers at defeated firms lost jobs.

Define vertical integration.

Controlling all stages of production: Carnegie owned mines, ore fields, ships, railroads, and mills. Reduces production costs.

Define trust. Why did Rockefeller use one?

Companies assign stock to a board of trustees who run the combined organization. Ohio law barred owning another company’s stock, so Standard Oil’s trust got around it. The public later called any monopolistic group a “trust.”

John D. Rockefeller?

Ohio oil tycoon; Standard Oil; pioneer of horizontal integration; made railroad deals that made competitors’ shipping hard; his trust refined most U.S. oil by the early 1880s.

Andrew Carnegie?

Scottish-born steel tycoon; vertical integration; later gave about $288 million to social and educational causes.

Cornelius Vanderbilt?

Railroad entrepreneur who started in steamboats; low fares made competitors pay him to relocate.

What are economies of scale?

Cost per unit falls as volume rises: bigger plants, bulk pricing, lower administration costs, specialized labor, better borrowing rates.

How did production management affect labor?

Owners met goals with fewer skilled workers; people lacking new skills or unable to keep a regimented pace lost jobs.

“Robber barons” vs. “captains of industry”?

Robber barons: critics saw unfair advantages, high monopoly prices, squeezed small firms, hurt workers. Captains: supporters saw jobs, lower prices, innovation, international leadership, and philanthropy (universities, museums, libraries).

Define Social Darwinism.

William Graham Sumner (Yale) applied Darwin’s natural selection to capitalism: wealth shows fitness. Used to justify laissez-faire, oppose aid to the poor, and fuel discrimination.

Which book did Darwin publish in 1859?

On the Origin of Species, arguing evolution by natural selection.

Fixing rates and pooling?

Railroad practices: fixing rates, and secret agreements to divide up freight. Seen as unfair, raising prices.

Interstate Commerce Commission (1887)?

First federal agency to monitor business; watched railroad rates but only across state lines; could not make laws or control transactions; weakened by courts.

Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)?

Outlawed trusts “in restraint of trade” among the states. Pros: fines, competitors could sue. Cons: hard to enforce, vague, courts favored business, and it was used more against labor unions than monopolies.

Hardships of factory work?

12-hour days, 6 days a week; poor light, heat, ventilation, noise (hearing loss); frequent accidents; clocked hours and fines. Sweatshops were small, hot, dark, mostly women. Plenty of replacement labor.

Child labor?

Nearly 1 in 5 children aged 10–16 worked by 1900; stunted growth. Social workers lobbied; states eventually passed laws.

Company towns and “wage slavery”?

Employer owned housing and the company store (credit at high interest), so wages were owed back; workers could be arrested for leaving before paying debts. Employers also reinforced ethnic competition and segregation.

Define collective bargaining and strike.

Bargaining: negotiating as a group for better wages or conditions (since 1820s). Strike: refusing to work until demands are met.

National Trades Union (1834)?

First national labor union, open to all trades; lasted few years. By mid-1800s, a 10-hour day was standard in New England.

Define socialism. Who were Marx and Engels?

Philosophy favoring public control of property and income, with wealth distributed equally. They wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848). Most Americans rejected it, but labor activists borrowed ideas.

Knights of Labor?

Founded 1869 by Uriah Stephens; open to all workers (including women and African Americans); aimed at broad reform and cooperatives. Led by Terence Powderly from 1879 (boycotts, strikes); about 700,000 by 1885; faded by the 1890s.

American Federation of Labor (AFL)?

Founded 1886 under Samuel Gompers (president nearly 40 years): loose federation of ~100 skilled craft unions; high dues funded strike and pension funds; focused on wages, hours, conditions (“bread and butter”); excluded women and mostly African Americans; 2 million by 1910.

Great Railroad Strike (1877)?

First major strike, over wage cuts; property destruction; militias protected strikebreakers; federal troops restored order.

Haymarket Riot (1886)?

Rally for an 8-hour day in Chicago; a bomb killed a policeman; eight anarchists tried, four executed; Knights of Labor declined; public linked unions with violence.

Homestead Strike (1892)?

Carnegie Steel plant cut wages; Henry Frick brought in Pinkertons who killed strikers; an anarchist tried to kill Frick; public opinion turned and union ended the strike.

Pullman Strike (1894)?

George Pullman cut wages 25% but not rents. Debs’s American Railway Union (industrial union) backed a boycott: ~300,000 workers halted rail traffic. A court ordered it ended; Cleveland sent federal troops; Debs jailed.

In re Debs (1895)?

Supreme Court upheld Debs’s conviction: protecting interstate commerce and railroads’ property rights was lawful government power.

Eugene V. Debs after Pullman?

Became a Socialist, helped organize the American Socialist Party (1897), ran for president in 1900, and helped found the IWW (Wobblies) in 1905.

Long-term impact of Pullman?

Employers got court orders citing Sherman Act; courts denied unions legal recognition and limited gains for 30+ years.

“Old” vs. “new” immigrants?

Old (pre-1870s): Protestants from northern and western Europe, came as families, had skills, settled farms. New: from southern and eastern Europe (Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Russia), poor, unskilled, Catholic or Jewish, urban, often alone planning to return. Over 70% by 1900s.

Push vs. pull factors?

Push: famine, war, persecution, land reform, low crop prices, religious persecution of Jews. Pull: jobs, land (1862 Homestead Act, cheap railroad fares), religious and political freedom.

Define chain immigrants.

People who followed family or friends who promised help with jobs and housing and sometimes sent tickets.

Define steerage.

The worst, crowded and dirty lower-deck ship accommodations; illness spread, some died.

Ellis Island (1892)?

New York Harbor station. Steerage passengers got legal and medical inspections; only about 2% were denied entry.

Angel Island (1910)?

San Francisco Bay station designed to filter out Chinese immigrants; detention for weeks or months; detainees carved poems into walls.

Define Americanization and settlement houses.

Programs (often at settlement houses) that taught immigrants English and American dress and diet.

Fraternal associations?

Ethnic or religious groups (Polish National Alliance, Ancient Order of Hibernians) that gave social services and financial help.

What was the “melting pot”?

Idea that nationalities blend into one culture; name from a 1908 play. Excluded Asian immigrants, who faced discrimination.

Define nativism.

Preferring native-born, white Americans over new immigrants. Fueled by job competition, “scientific” racism, Social Darwinism, anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish prejudice, and restrictive housing contracts.

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)?

Banned Chinese laborers, limited civil rights, forbade naturalization. Hurt California’s economy and separated families. An 1898 ruling made American-born Chinese citizens, though officials often ignored it.

Other early restrictions (1882)?

A law barred criminals, “immoral” people, paupers, and those likely to need aid, used to bar poor or disabled immigrants. Began legislated restriction.

Immigrant contributions to culture?

Foods (bagels, spaghetti, wieners, chow mein), ranching, railroad building, mining and mills. Individuals: Carnegie, Naismith (basketball), Bell, Baekeland (plastics), Tesla.

Mother Jones and Gompers?

Mary Harris Jones: Irish-born, fought for coal miners’ union rights. Gompers: English-born Jewish cigar maker; AFL became the model for U.S. unionism.

How fast did cities grow?

In 1860 only 16% lived in towns of 8,000+; by 1900 that doubled and nearly 15 million lived in cities over 50,000.

Rural vs. urban life?

Rural: farm work tied to growing seasons, outdoors. Urban: indoor factory work, year-round, fixed schedules, trolleys, apartments.

Why did farmers move to cities?

Weather, isolation, falling prices from overproduction, new machinery, plus city excitement and cash wages. Midwest cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul, Chicago) boomed 1880–1890.

Define rural-to-urban migrants.

People who moved from farms to cities, including a smaller number of African Americans (most stayed in southern cities; foreshadowed the post-WWI migration).

Opportunities for women in cities?

Factory work, boarders, piecework, domestic service; educated women became teachers, secretaries, typists.

Immigrant job patterns?

Polish in western PA steel; Jewish immigrants in NY textiles; Irish women domestic servants; Scandinavians in Pacific NW fish packing.

Define skyscraper. Role of Elisha Otis?

Steel-frame buildings of ten or more stories. Otis developed the safety elevator in the 1850s. Central heating improved in the 1870s.

American Institute of Architecture?

Founded 1857 to professionalize architecture through education and licensing.

Mass transit?

Richmond, VA, had overhead-cable electric streetcars in 1888; Boston’s subway in 1897; New York’s in 1904. Cleaner than steam or horses.

Define suburbs. Who lived where?

Streetcar suburbs on the quieter edge for those who could afford fares; poorer people stayed in the center to walk to work.

City planning: Daniel Burnham, zoning, Olmsted?

Burnham designed the “White City” for Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair. Zoning separated industry, finance, residences. Frederick Law Olmsted designed Central Park and Fairmount Park (protected Philadelphia’s water).

Define tenements.

Low-cost multifamily housing that squeezed in many families; few windows, little sanitation. Lower East Side exceeded 700 people per acre (1890). Jacob Riis exposed it.

Define cholera and how cities responded.

A dangerous illness spread by contaminated water. Cities regulated housing, sanitation, sewers; used separate reservoirs; filtration in the 1890s.

City safety problems and solutions?

Fires (Chicago 1871: 200–300 dead, 100,000+ homeless) led to professional firefighters; night danger led to uniformed police and electric streetlights; ethnic tensions, gangs.

Mark Twain and the Gilded Age?

Twain’s 1873 novel The Gilded Age depicted society as a rotten core covered with gold paint; the label stuck for the late 1800s.

Define conspicuous consumerism.

A culture of wanting and buying many new products, as mass production lowered prices and wages and discretionary income rose.

Department stores?

Rowland Macy (1858, NYC); departments, advertising, fair prices. John Wanamaker: first money-back guarantee, big newspaper ads; as Postmaster General started rural free delivery, boosting mail-order catalogs.

Brand names and standard of living?

Trademarks and logos created brand recognition. Cheaper factory goods, better sanitation and medicine raised life expectancy and spending power. Victorian Era: middle class imitated the rich.