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US History since 1877 - Key Concepts (Chapters 1-7) Flashcards

Industrialization: Lecture 2 (US History Since 1877)

  • Timeframe and big themes

    • 19th century broad narrative to remember: from 1801 to 1900. Two defining themes:
    • The Civil War (1861–1865)
    • Industrialization, especially in the second half of the century.
    • By 1900, the United States moved from an largely agrarian society to an industrial behemoth, producing more than any other nation in the world in terms of industrial output.
    • The shift from an early manufacturing base in New England to a nationwide industrial economy centered on mass production and rail infrastructure.

  • The two industrial revolutions and energy use

    • First Industrial Revolution (England, mid-18th century):
    • Textiles and tech dominated; relied on steam power and water power as primary energy sources.
    • Water wheels turned machinery; steam power began to play a role.
    • Second Industrial Revolution (post–Civil War United States):
    • Centered on burning fossil fuels (coal, oil) and electricity generation.
    • Energy base drastically different from the first revolution; allowed a scale of industry previously unimaginable.

  • Population, migration, and output growth (1865–1899)

    • Population tripled, largely due to external immigration from Central and Southern Europe.
    • Farm production doubled, enabling for a much larger urban workforce and a growing consumer base.
    • Value of manufactured goods rose by about 600\% during these years.
    • Core driver of growth: the expansion of rail systems that connected raw materials to factories and markets, creating a national economy.
    • Railroads shifted industrial emphasis from the Northeast/New England toward the middle states (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois) and the Great Lakes; East of the Mississippi saw the densest network.

  • Railroads: the spine of industrialization

    • The railroad was the first major national business and connected distant regions, opening the West to settlement and commerce.
    • By 1900, the U.S. had roughly 193{,}000\text{ miles} of track, up from about 30{,}000\text{ miles} in 1862.
    • Transcontinental Railroad: linked the East and West coast, binding the nation together.
    • Major competing companies early on: Union Pacific Railroad (started in Omaha, westward) and Central Pacific (started in Sacramento, eastward).
    • The two lines met at Promontory Point, Utah, where the famous Golden Spike ceremony marked completion.
    • Behind the public achievement were thousands of immigrant laborers, notably Chinese workers on the Central Pacific; their contributions are often under-acknowledged in iconic imagery.
    • Railroads created a national market by tying together cities, rivers, and regions; they also yielded a new class of financiers and industrialists.
    • Railroading era introduced significant corruption and financial manipulation: land grants given by the government were sold to raise capital; the industry was rife with aggressive, sometimes shady deals.

  • Leading railroad magnates and the rise of robber barons

    • Jay Gould: emblematic of cutthroat practices, speculative manipulation of weak or failing lines; casting as a robber baron.
    • Cornelius Vanderbilt (the Commodore): built a vast Northeast rail network via the New York Central, connecting New York to Chicago; his family controlled many miles of track.
    • A typical business model: buy up as many failing or marginal lines as possible, then control prices and routes, effectively creating monopolies without government oversight.
    • The era is framed by the term robber baron, signaling perceived greed and market manipulation; not all railroad leaders were unscrupulous, but the label stuck to practice in general.

  • The economics of monopoly and the absence of early regulation

    • The era was largely laissez-faire: government as referee was not yet established in economic life.
    • Monopoly-building involved horizontal integration (buying competing lines and related supply chains) and, later, holdings that coordinated across multiple stages of production.
    • The result: monopolies could raise profits by controlling prices and supply, often at the expense of competition.

  • Cornelius Vanderbilt and the railroad empire

    • Vanderbilt’s strategy: accumulate lines, extend networks, consolidate control over Northeast routes and cross-country links.
    • By mid-late 19th century, Vanderbilt’s line expansions helped consolidate a large portion of the country’s rail infrastructure.
    • The Vanderbilt system showcased the potential and the danger of monopolistic power in transportation and related industries.

  • The rise of steel, electricity, and mass production (key technologies)

    • The “Second Industrial Revolution” also hinged on breakthroughs in steel, electricity, and communication.
    • Steel redefined infrastructure and city-building; iron rails were replaced by steel rails, enabling heavier trains and longer spans.
    • Bessemer process: purifying iron into stronger steel by blowing air through molten mass; led to stronger rails and taller buildings.
    • William Kelly (U.S.) and Henry Bessemer (Britain) contributed to refining processes; Bessemer’s more successful commercialization popularized the method.
    • Steel’s advantages: higher strength-to-weight ratio, durability, and the ability to fabricate large structural elements (I-beams, uprights) for construction.
    • Elevators (Otis) and the vertical growth of cities: steel frames enabled high-rise construction, accelerating urban skylines and vertical density.
    • Balloon-frame housing and the transition to steel framing transformed architectural methods and urban design.
    • Telegraph and telephone: farther-reaching communications enabling faster business and coordination.
    • Alexander Graham Bell popularized the telephone; widespread adoption took time but fundamentally changed business and social life.

  • Inventions and the shaped consumer culture

    • Edison era and innovations:
    • Incandescent light bulb, phonograph, motion pictures, and lab-based experimentation in New Jersey.
    • Edison’s lab employed many inventors; he often received credit for team results.
    • Nikola Tesla and alternating current (AC): crucial pivot in electrical technology. Tesla advocated AC for efficiency and long-distance transmission.
    • Westinghouse and the AC revolution: backed by money to commercialize AC; outpaced Edison’s DC approach.
    • General Electric (Edison) vs Westinghouse: ongoing corporate competition and the broader shift toward electrification.
    • The patent system thrived: hundreds of inventions patented; nine out of ten inventions failed, but many transformative ideas succeeded.
    • Other notable innovations: refrigerated rail cars; canned foods; improved glass and bottle manufacturing; advances in canning; Singer Sewing Machine; typewriter; vacuum cleaner; ice-making technologies (John Corey in Apalachicola, Florida).
    • The ice industry: ice boxes and ice supply chains (New England ice) enabled year-round food storage and urban markets.
    • Food transport and storage improvements (refrigeration, canning, and mass distribution) connected distant regions of the country in new ways.

  • Oil, kerosene, and the rise of Standard Oil

    • Oil basics and refining
    • Crude oil initially found its use in lubrication and as a crude, inconsistent resource.
    • Benjamin Silliman refined crude oil into kerosene in the 1850s, which became a cleaner, cheaper lamp fuel, replacing whale oil.
    • Edwin Drake drilled the first oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania, around the 1860s; the early output reached about 30{,}000\text{ barrels/day} by mid-1870s at significant sites.
    • Rockefeller and the refining empire
    • John D. Rockefeller focused on refining oil and moving kerosene to markets, not merely drilling wells.
    • In 1870, Rockefeller formed the Standard Oil Company of Ohio and integrated production and distribution in a vertically integrated system.
    • Rockefeller sought control at all levels: crude oil fields, pipelines, refineries, tank cars, storage facilities, and distribution networks; he even built or controlled transport and containers necessary for oil movement.
    • The strategy reduced reliance on external suppliers and created a profit-maximizing system across all stages of production.
    • Organization and monopoly mechanisms
    • Rockefeller used trusts to consolidate control: stockholders transferred shares to a board of trustees while receiving stock certificates in return, creating a unified entity that operated as Standard Oil.
    • This approach assembled a nationwide network and created a de facto monopoly: control over production, transport, and sale of oil.
    • Horizontal integration (expanding across the same stage of production by buying similar companies) created a broader monopoly umbrella for Standard Oil.
    • The economics and ethics of monopolies
    • Monopolies undermine competition, central to free market theory, and thus pose challenges to consumer welfare and pricing dynamics.
    • The Standard Oil model became the archetype of a monopoly, provoking debates about regulation and market freedom.
    • Breakup and transformation
    • The Supreme Court later dissolved Standard Oil’s trust under antitrust logic (the Sherman Antitrust Act era), concluding it restrained trade.
    • After the breakup (1892), Rockefeller pivoted to a holding company model to continue centralized control with stock ownership structures.
    • Broader impact of Rockefeller’s wealth
    • Rockefeller’s wealth was enormous—hundreds of millions in 19th century terms, comparable to modern billionaire scale, presenting questions about wealth concentration and social responsibility.

  • Andrew Carnegie, steel, and philanthropy

    • Carnegie’s ascent
    • Began in modest circumstances; built Carnegie Steel and Bethlehem Steel via aggressive acquisition and expansion in steel and supporting industries.
    • He used the Bessemer process to scale steel production and become one of the era’s most prominent industrialists.
    • The Gospel of Wealth (1889)
    • Carnegie argued that the wealthy had an obligation to use their wealth to benefit society, and that dying with wealth was a moral failing.
    • He funded thousands of libraries, educational institutions, and cultural centers (Carnegie Libraries, Carnegie Halls, etc.).
    • The broader moral debate in philanthropy
    • While Carnegie donated substantial sums, many contemporaries did not, raising questions about the fairness of wealth. The era’s moral and political debates weighed heavily on the role of philanthropy and state policy.

  • The Gilded Age: Mark Twain, wealth, and social critique

    • Twain popularized the term Gilded Age (late 19th century), signaling glittering wealth on the surface but substantial corruption and poverty beneath.
    • The era’s wealth distribution was profoundly unequal: a small elite held immense wealth while most Americans lived in poverty.
    • The famous line of critique: a thin gold veneer over underlying social and economic problems (maldistribution of wealth).
    • A common symbol of critique: posters depicting a pyramid where the top holds capital while workers and farmers are beneath, highlighting the power and exploitation dynamics in capitalism.
    • The 1% vs 95% wealth concentration motif became a touchstone for debates about economic justice and government intervention.

  • Social Darwinism and eugenics: ideas used to justify inequality

    • Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinism
    • Applied Darwinian ideas of natural selection to society, arguing the wealthiest and most capable individuals are the “fittest” and should lead.
    • Argued government intervention to help the poor would interfere with natural selection and social progress; the market should be left free.
    • This philosophy framed economics as the “dismal science” and justified wealth concentration as natural and beneficial.
    • Francis Galton and Eugenics
    • Galton, Darwin’s cousin, promoted Eugenics: a pseudo-scientific effort to encourage reproduction among the “fit” and discourage it among the “less fit.”
    • The hierarchy of humanity was racialized and biased toward Anglo-Saxon or “northern” ancestries as the “cream of the crop.”
    • This thinking supported sterilization laws and discriminatory policies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, influencing later genocidal ideologies in Europe.
    • Impact and legacy
    • Eugenics and social Darwinism provided intellectual cover for the maltreatment and exclusion of marginalized groups and shaped policy debates for decades.
    • The post–World War II era rejected these ideas scientifically, reaffirming equality of human beings, but the historical impact lingered in law and policy.

  • Horatio Alger and the American Dream

    • Horatio Alger’s dime novels framed an aspirational narrative: hard work, self-discipline, and a bit of luck could lift a person from poverty to wealth.
    • Rags-to-riches ethos supported by popular culture (e.g., the “Tattered Tom” series) helped justify mobility in a rapidly industrializing society.
    • This narrative sat alongside the harsh realities of wealth concentration, offering a hopeful counterpoint to critics of inequality.

  • Banking, finance, and the rise of JP Morgan

    • The era’s giants did not only produce goods; they engineered financial consolidation.
    • J. P. Morgan emerged as a leading investment banker through wholesale acquisition and strategic financing of corporations.
    • Morgan financed and orchestrated mergers that created large corporate empires, including the consolidation of the steel industry that culminated in U.S. Steel (1901), the first billion-dollar company by some measures.
    • The growing power of financiers raised questions about the influence of money in politics and the governance of large-scale capitalism.

  • The social and political critique of capitalism

    • The period produced powerful critiques of capitalism’s social consequences, especially the massive wealth gap and the power of monopolies.
    • The visual poster from the era captures anxieties about concentrated wealth and the perceived moral risks of unregulated markets.
    • Debates about reform vs laissez-faire framed early discussions of antitrust policy and social policy, paving the way for later regulatory changes.

  • Summary of key numerical and factual anchors to memorize

    • Population growth and immigration: population tripled; large-scale Central and Southern European immigration fueled labor supply.
    • Industrial output: by 1900, U.S. output dwarfed other nations.
    • Rail expansion: 193{,}000\text{ miles} of track by 1900; up from 30{,}000\text{ miles} in 1862; network concentrated east of the Mississippi but connected West and North through the Great Lakes.
    • Rail labor and labor dynamics: large contributions by immigrant laborers (notably Chinese on the Central Pacific) in building the Transcontinental Railroad.
    • Economic growth: manufactured goods value rose by 600\% during the period of rapid industrialization.
    • Energy transition: shift from water/steam-centric power in the First Industrial Revolution to coal, oil, and electricity in the Second.
    • Major figures and milestones: Union Pacific and Central Pacific (Transcontinental Railroad); Promontory Point (Golden Spike); Rockefeller (Standard Oil, trust, vertical/horizontal integration, later holding companies); Carnegie (Carnegie Steel, Gospel of Wealth); Rockefeller–Carnegie–Morgan era; Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse (electricity and mass electrification); J. P. Morgan and U.S. Steel; Mark Twain’s Gilded Age critique; Eugenics and Social Darwinism.

  • How these developments reshaped American life and thought

    • Economic changes: a national market economy anchored by rail, steel, oil, and electricity; the emergence of large-scale corporate power and the beginnings of modern American capitalism.
    • Urban transformation: steel and elevators enabled skyscrapers; cities became vertical hubs; mass production and distribution tied distant regions together.
    • Cultural shifts: consumer culture, materialism, and new forms of leisure and daily life; rising middle-class ideals paired with profound inequality.
    • Ethical and political questions: the legitimacy of monopolies, the proper role of government in regulating the economy, the fairness of wealth distribution, and the acceptance or rejection of ideas like Social Darwinism and Eugenics.

  • Connections to broader themes and later developments

    • The era sets the stage for progressive reform in the early 20th century, particularly around antitrust policy and labor rights.
    • The concentration of wealth spurred ongoing debates about taxation, social welfare, and corporate governance that persist in American policy and culture.
    • The technological breakthroughs laid the groundwork for modern infrastructure, communications, and energy systems that shape the US economy long after 1900.