APUSH Unit 6 Notes: Industrialization of America

Technology and Industrialization

• During the last few decades of the 19th century, American industry shifted towards mass production for global markets, a significant departure from local or regional sales.

Railroads: The Granddaddy of Technological Innovation

• Railroads facilitated the creation of a national market by enabling quick and easy transportation of goods.
• This led to mass production and mass consumption.
• After the Civil War, railroad mileage increased fivefold.
• The federal government supported railroad construction through land grants and loan subsidies.
• Approximately 170,000,000 acres of land were granted to railroad companies.
• By the end of the century, four new transcontinental railroads were completed, connecting:
  • Nebraska to California
  • New Orleans to Los Angeles
  • Kansas City to Los Angeles
  • Minnesota to Washington
• These railroads enabled easy access between the East and West, fostering a national market.

Steel Production: The Bessemer Process

• In the 1850s, Henry Bessemer patented the Bessemer process for producing stronger steel.
• The Bessemer process involved blasting air through molten iron to create higher quality steel.
• This method enabled manufacturers to produce greater quantities of steel.

Access to Natural Resources

• Greater access to natural resources like coal and oil facilitated industrial expansion.
• Coal, especially anthracite coal from Western Pennsylvania, was the primary energy source for factories and locomotives.
• Oil later surpassed coal as the main fuel for industry and automobiles.

Communication Innovations

• The telegraph, invented by Samuel Morse in 1844, expanded significantly during this period, enabling long-distance communication at the speed of electricity.
• A transatlantic cable was laid, connecting America to Europe and creating an international market for goods like coal, oil, steel, and grain.
• Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, leading to the founding of the Bell Telephone Company. By the end of 1880, there were approximately 50,000 telephones in America.

Rise of Industrial Capitalism in America

• Industrialism involved a shift towards mass production and consumption, leading to the obsolescence of small locally-owned businesses.
• This period is known as the Gilded Age, characterized by a thin layer of gold covering underlying issues.
• Large corporations and trusts dominated industries like railroad, steel, and oil.

Oil Industry

• John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil consolidated the oil industry through horizontal integration.
• Horizontal integration involves one company buying out its competitors, eliminating competition.
• By the late 1880s, Standard Oil controlled almost 90% of the oil industry.

Steel Industry

• Andrew Carnegie dominated the steel industry through vertical integration.
• Vertical integration involves a company acquiring all complementary industries that support its business, such as mining, processing, and distribution companies.

Expansion into Foreign Markets

• Industry leaders sought to control foreign markets and resources, leading to American imperialism.
• They aimed to acquire new markets in places like the Pacific Rim in Asia and Latin America for sales and resources.
• This contributed to the impetus for empire in America.

Laissez-faire Government Policies

• Laissez-faire policies, meaning "let alone," led to minimal government intervention in business.
• Politicians might have genuinely believed in free enterprise or were influenced by financial incentives to avoid regulations.

Underpaid Labor

• Industries relied on a large pool of underpaid laborers, including immigrants, women, and children.
• A huge influx of immigrants from Europe provided a cheap labor source.
• Women were hired in factories and paid about a quarter of what men earned.

Social Darwinism

• Social Darwinism, a corruption of biological Darwinism, was applied to economics.
• It argued that strong companies should dominate weak companies, concentrating wealth in the hands of the most "fit."

Gospel of Wealth

• Andrew Carnegie advocated for the Gospel of Wealth, arguing that wealthy individuals had a duty to invest their wealth back into society through philanthropy.
• Carnegie donated approximately 350,000,000 to build libraries, concert halls, and universities.
• Industry leaders were referred to as either "captains of industry" or "robber barons."

Labor in the Gilded Age

• The Gilded Age saw a significant division between the rich and the poor.
• Wealthy business owners displayed their wealth through conspicuous consumption.
• Many people lived in poverty, with wages below a comfortable standard of living.
• The working class suffered during economic turmoil, such as the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893.
• Mass production led to decreased prices on common items, and wages rose, improving the standard of living for many Americans.
• The working class fought to increase wages and improve safety standards in dangerous workplaces.
• Workers formed labor unions to address issues collectively.

Labor Unions

• Labor unions employed tactics like political action, slowdowns, and strikes.
• The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 involved railroad workers protesting wage cuts, spreading to 11 states and shutting down over 60% of the nation's railroads. Federal troops were sent in to restore order, resulting in over a hundred deaths.
• The Pullman Strike near Chicago occurred when George Pullman cut wages. Eugene V. Debs directed union members not to work on trains with Pullman cars. Debs was jailed for hindering rail traffic, effectively breaking the strike.

Knights of Labor

• Went public in 1881.
• The Knights of Labor was a national union that opened its membership to anyone, including black laborers and women.
• The main goals included the destruction of trusts and monopolies and the abolition of child labor.
• Children as young as 10 were part of the industrial workforce, constituting about 18% of the workforce by the end of the 19th century.
• At its peak, the Knights of Labor had over 700,000 members.
• The organization fell apart after the Haymarket Square riot in 1886, where a bomb exploded during a labor movement protest. The public associated the bombing with the Knights of Labor, leading to a decline in membership.

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

• Led by Samuel Gompers.
• Was an association of craft workers.
• By 1981, the AFL had a million members.
• Its goals were focused on higher wages and safer working conditions.

Immigration and Migration

• Immigration involves moving from one country to another, while migration involves moving within the same country.
• From 1865 to 1898, both kinds of movements occurred in the United States.

Immigration

• The US population grew significantly, partly due to approximately 16,000,000 immigrants.
• Most immigrants arrived from Europe (British Isles, Scandinavia, and Europe) due to poverty, overcrowding, joblessness, and religious persecution.
• Immigrants from Russia, Italy, and the Balkans also arrived.
• Immigrants largely settled in industrial cities like Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New York.
• Asian immigrants, mainly Chinese, continued to arrive on the West Coast.
• Before the Civil War, people from different social classes lived together in cities. During the Gilded Age, the middle class and the wealthy moved away from the cities.
• Industrial cities were largely made of the working class and the urban poor, many of them immigrants.
• Working-class districts became squalid, with immigrants crowding into poorly constructed tenements.
• Outbreaks of diseases like cholera, typhus, and tuberculosis were common.
• Immigrants established ethnic enclaves with cultural institutions such as churches, synagogues, banking institutions, and political organizations.

Migration: The Exoduster Movement

• Significant migration of southern black people into the West, known as the Exoduster movement.
• The end of Reconstruction meant that the black population was left without federal protection of their rights.
• Terror groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow laws led black southerners to seek accommodation elsewhere.
• Starting in the late 1870s, approximately 40,000 black southerners migrated to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado.
• Organizations like the Colored Relief Board and the Kansas Freedmen's Aid Society assisted them.
• Exodusters who settled in urban centers and worked as domestic servants or trade workers were more successful.
• Many Exodusters attempted to carve out homesteads but faced destitution due to limited land availability.

American Responses to International Migrants

• During the Gilded Age, European and Asian immigrants were arriving in America by the millions.
• Debate arose over what to do with all these immigrants.
• Immigrants grappled with whether to assimilate or hold on to their native society.
• Many immigrants partially assimilated and partially held on to their ethnic identities.

Nativism

• Nativists grew concerned over the identity of America with all these non-Americans.
• Nativism is a policy of protecting the interests of native-born folks over against the interests of immigrants.
• Protestant ministers like Henry Cabot Lodge argued that Anglo-Saxon Americans were committing "race suicide" by allowing so many members of inferior races to intermingle.
• Nativists formed groups like the American Protective Association (APA), which was against Catholics.
• Millions of Irish immigrants were Catholic and were being voted into office.
• Labor unions feared immigrants because they were desperate for work and would agree to be hired for meager wages.

Social Darwinism and Philosophical Racism

• Immigrants had to bear the brunt of philosophical racism.
• Proponents applied biological Darwinism to societal realities.
• Social Darwinists believed that the Irish were racially inferior to the true standard of American whiteness.

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

• This law banned any further Chinese immigration to The United States.
• This act represents the only law in US history to target a specific nationality to be excluded from immigration.

Jane Addams and Settlement Houses

• Established settlement houses to help immigrants better assimilate to American society.
• The most famous of settlements was the Hull House, opened in 1889.
• Immigrants were taught English, children were enrolled in early childhood education programs, and immigrants were taught democratic ideals.

Rise of the Middle Class

• Large corporations divided into executives on top, laborers on the bottom, and a managerial layer in the middle.
• Middle managers were referred to as white-collar workers.
• Other workers such as accountants, legal services, health care, and clerical workers supported the managers.
• The wages of the middle class tended to rise more sharply than did the working class, and they had shorter working days.
• Leisure time activities increased with the rise of the middle class.
• Coney Island was built in New York and was the largest amusement park in The United States at the time of its opening.
• Other spectator sports like baseball and American football gained popularity.

Philanthropy Inspired by Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth

• Carnegie saw it as his duty to reinvest his money into society to provide more opportunity for those less fortunate.
• The Gospel of Wealth stated that those with extraordinary riches had a duty not to hold on to that wealth and pass it on to their children.
• Carnegie's ultimate goal was to reduce the societal distance between the rich and the poor.
• Carnegie believed that hard work led to wealth and that using the money to create opportunities for the poor to better themselves was the best way to help them better themselves.
• He invested it in cultural institutions like free public libraries and universities and concert halls.
• Another millionaire, Phoebe Apperson Hurst, was also a radical philanthropist and a crusader for the women's suffrage movement.
• Hurst gave away her money, with one of the causes being education.
• The results of the Gospel of Wealth created the opportunity for some folks to rise to the middle class.

Reform Movements in the Gilded Age

• Reform movements responded to the rise of industrial capitalism in the Gilded Age.
• Industrial capitalism led to the mass production of goods and a concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite upper class.
• Factory workers faced dangerous working conditions and long hours with meager wages.
• Artists and critics, including agrarians, utopians, socialists, and advocates of the social gospel, demanded reform.

Agrarians and Critics

• Henry George thought it was foolish that so much wealth could be generated by a nation while so many of its citizens lived in poverty.
• His solution was called the single tax on land.

Utopians

• Edward Bellamy wrote a novel in 1888 called Looking Backward, where a man finds that America had been transformed into a socialist utopia.

Socialism

• Socialism picked up steam during this time.
• Under socialism, all the means of production in a society should be owned and regulated by the community and benefit everyone more or less equally.
• Eugene V. Debs started the Socialist Party of America in 1901.

Social Gospel

• Advocates believed that Christian principles ought to be applied not just to oneself but to cure the ills of society.
• Protestant preachers crusaded for social justice for the urban poor.
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Women's Reform Movements

• Jane Addams established settlement houses to help immigrants assimilate to American culture.
• There was a big push for women's suffrage during this time.
• In 1890, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded the American Woman Suffrage Association (NASA), which worked to secure the franchise for women.
• Women also took up the cause of temperance, the fight against consumption of alcohol.
• Women formed the Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1874 and they crusaded for total abstinence from alcohol.
• Carrie Nation carried a hatchet into saloons and hacked at liquor barrels.

Controversies Over the Role of Government

• The rise of industry in America changed the production of goods, demographics of cities, and the structure of classes.
• One of the most pointed debates was with respect to the role government should take in relationship to all these changing realities.
• The debate about the role of the federal government in the economy stretches back to the founding of the country.

Laissez-faire Economics

• Remind ourselves about the dominant economic ideology during this period, namely laissez-faire economics.
• Laissez-faire is French for leave alone or let alone.
• Economies are best governed by the laws of supply demand, according to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776.
• In the conditions, the invisible hand of the market will always flourish best under those conditions and therefore lead to the flourishing of society.
• One vital ingredient for a healthy economy in Smith's view is competition, but these business leaders had so consolidated power that it didn't exist.

Government Involvement

• Even during economic downturns, the federal government did get involved.
• In 1886, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that states couldn't regulate railroads. The Interstate Commerce Commission was created to ensure that states didn't violate this law but was deeply underfunded.
• Laissez-faire was the rule of the game during the Gilded Age, both for enterprise and for politics.
• The government did get involved when gains for business and the economy could be made.
• Business leaders worked with Republican politicians to expand markets overseas by means of diplomacy.
• Laissez-faire capitalists strongly supported the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and lead to the US annexing them in 1898, that meant new markets were open.
• The open door policy was established between China and The United States in 1899 to 1900 and advocated for equal trading rights in all the ports of China, which were rapidly being consumed by European powers.

Politics in the Gilded Age

• Politics in the Gilded Age meant corrupt. The gold of the golden covered turd was worn off and all that was left with was the turd.
• Politics was largely hands off, thanks to the laissez faire attitude towards government intervention.
• The major parties were the Democrats and the Republicans whose beliefs essentially corresponded to the lingering divisions of the civil war.
• Democrats were mainly Southerners and championed states' rights and racial segregation.
• Republicans were the northern, more industrial party who could count on votes from black people, middle class businessmen, and protestants.

Contentious Issues

• The parties fought about civil service. The way patronage works is that when a candidate won the presidency, he would sit at his desk for months hearing from thousands of callers who had lined up out the door looking for federally appointed jobs because they had been a supporter of that candidate.
• In order to correct this patronage system of civil service, congress passed the Pendleton Act of 1881 that replaced the patronage system with a competitive examination.
• Prior to this, candidates were funded by the party faithful, is why they felt like they were owed jobs when their candidate won. Now they shifted to receiving funding from a handful of wealthy individuals, and so this debt based patronage system wasn't nearly as binding as it was previously.
• At this point, The United States money supply was reckoned according to the gold standard, which means that the federal government would only print the amount of paper currency that could be backed by the value of the gold in their vaults.
• Farmers and entrepreneurs argue that the money supply should be expanded to include more paper money in circulation beyond the gold standard, and eventually, they would also argue for the unlimited coinage of silver as well.
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• During the civil war, congress had put protective tariffs in place to protect American industry and to raise funds for the war. Congress protective tariffs in place because much of the federal government's budget was funded by tariff revenue.
• A protective tariff protects American businesses because when taxes are high on imported good, people are more likely to buy the cheaper American made goods.

Populist Party

• The Populist Party sought to work for the people and correct the gross concentration of economic power held by elite banks and trusts.
• They published their beliefs in what was called the Omaha platform, which was replete with political and economic reforms.
• They advocated for the direct election of senators and the use of initiatives and referendums which allowed people to propose and vote on legislation.
• On the economic side, they argued for the unlimited coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, which means, like, the more that you made, the more you were taxed, and an eight hour workday.

Politics in Urban Centers

• During the Gilded Age, urban political parties came under the domination and control of corrupt political machines, which were basically groups of folks who knew how to secure votes for their parties.
• At the top of these political machines were bosses who doled out orders, and if the members were faithful to the boss, then they were rewarded with jobs.
• Probably the most famous of these political machines was Tammany Hall in New York City, which was run by the infamous Boss Tweed, who stole millions of dollars from taxpayers through schemes of deceit and fraud.
• Tammany organized the needs of businesses and immigrants and the poor so that everyone in the community flourished in a mutually beneficial relationship between machines and their patrons.