Industrialization
The Transformation from Farm to Factory
Moving from Farms to Factories:
Between the end of the Civil War and World War I (, and up to ), the United States changed from a nation of small farms into a giant industrial powerhouse.
Before the Civil War, of all Americans worked as farmers. Today, only about work on farms.
Daily life sped up dramatically. Instead of quiet fields, people heard gushing oil wells, train whistles, and noisy factory machines, which encouraged many families to leave rural towns behind.
Moving to the Cities After the War:
Postwar:
(post-war)A period of time right after a war ends.After the Civil War, huge numbers of people moved into fast-growing industrial cities like Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Pittsburgh.
African Americans moved north to escape racial violence, unfair treatment, and Jim Crow laws in the South.
At the same time, millions of European immigrants arrived in American cities, eager to find jobs and build better lives.
Big factories were built near crowded cities so they could easily find workers and connect to major transportation lines. For example, Chicago became famous for meatpacking, and Pittsburgh was known for steel.
Agricultural Mechanization and Changing Rural Life
What is Mechanization?
Mechanization:
(mek-uh-niz-ay-shun)Using machines instead of human or animal muscle to do work.
Cyrus McCormick and the Reaper:
In , Cyrus McCormick of Virginia invented the mechanical grain reaper, which transformed farm harvesting.
The reaper could harvest wheat five times () faster than a farmer using a hand-held scythe (a long wooden stick with a sharp, curved metal blade).
McCormick kept improving his reaper design. He moved to Chicago and built a huge manufacturing plant under the company motto "Our Field Is the World."
How Farm Machines Changed Society:
Machines like reapers and tractors allowed farms to produce more crops with far fewer workers.
Because fewer farmhands were needed, many people moved to cities to find factory jobs, become engineers, or invent new technologies.
Factors Fueling Big Business and Industrial Prosperity
Better Transportation and National Markets:
Transcontinental railroads linked natural resources, factories, and shoppers across the entire country.
Rail travel "shrank" the nation: traveling from New York to California once took several months by wagon or ship, but trains reduced that journey to just a few days.
Railroad lines reached large cities and small towns, allowing companies to sell products all over the country.
Trains carried raw materials like copper, lead, and wood to Eastern factories, iron ore to Pittsburgh steel mills, and cotton to Northern clothing factories.
Lower Production Costs Through Mass Production:
Factories began using machines to mass-produce items instead of crafting them by hand.
Common items like shoes and furniture were quickly produced in large, identical batches, which made them much cheaper to produce.
Advertising and Mail-Order Catalogs:
Faster printing presses printed cheap daily newspapers and colorful magazines.
Companies ran eye-catching advertisements (such as *"Buy this! Try that! Just 5\text{¢}!"*) to get consumers to buy new items.\n\n - Mail-order catalogs became popular. Companies like Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery Ward printed catalogs so families in small farming towns could order items and have them delivered by train.\n\n- **Raising Money and Capital:**\n\n - Building factories and paying workers required huge amounts of money.\n\n - Business owners borrowed money from banks or sold fractional shares (small pieces of ownership in a business) to investors.\n\n - Investors bought shares and received a cut of the profits (called dividends). This system created modern investing and made many investors very rich.\n\n- **New Energy and Inventions:**\n\n - Electric power grids replaced steam and gas engines, running factory machines more efficiently.\n\n - Discovering oil in Texas and Oklahoma started a rush for "black gold," replacing the California gold rush.\n\n - New inventions like cars, telephones, light bulbs, and gramophones created brand-new industries and jobs.\n\n - **Thomas Edison:** Developed practical electric light bulbs. This gave people safe indoor light, but it also allowed bosses to make employees work late into the night.\n\n - **Alexander Graham Bell:** Introduced commercial telephone service, making long-distance communication fast and easy.\n\n\n\n### The Captains of Industry and Corporate Monopolies\n\n- **Cornelius Vanderbilt ( 1794-1877) -- Shipping and Railroads:**\n\n - He was a hardworking businessman who once stated: *"I have been insane on the subject of money-making all my life."*\n\n - At age 16, he operated a small passenger ferry in New York Harbor.\n\n - Over the next 30\text{ years}, he built a large fleet of steamships along the East Coast, and later started buying struggling railroad companies.\n\n - He fixed up tracks, made sure trains ran on time, and improved service for passengers.\n\n - By the 1870\text{s}, his rail network reached from New York to Chicago, making him the nation's largest employer and one of its richest citizens.\n\n - He lived in giant mansions, gave money to charities, and helped found Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.\n\n- **Andrew Carnegie (1835\text{--}1919) -- Steel:**\n\n - Immigrated from Scotland at age 13 and took his first job in a Pennsylvania textile mill.\n\n - He could not afford regular school, so he taught himself by reading books borrowed from a local library.\n\n - He worked his way up from telegraph messenger boy to railroad clerk, saving his wages to invest in bridge companies, train engines, and rail lines.\n\n - Believing that steel was the key to building modern America, Carnegie opened steel mills in Pittsburgh and built the most profitable steel business in the country.\n\n - In 190190\%2,500 free public libraries and support colleges.\n\n- **How Steel is Made:**\n\n - Iron ore from rocks is mixed with carbon from coal and limestone.\n\n - The mix is melted inside a blast furnace and blasted with pure oxygen gas.\n\n - The hot liquid steel is poured into molds to harden into strong shapes.\n\n - Steel is much stronger than iron, making it perfect for bridges, skyscrapers, and train rails.\n\n- **John D. Rockefeller (1839\text{--}1937) -- Oil:**\n\n - Learned discipline and thrift from his religious mother, and started his first business at age 19.\n\n - He picked Cleveland, Ohio, for his business because it was located near both water canals and major railroads.\n\n - As whale oil grew scarce, Rockefeller saw that petroleum could be turned into kerosene for home lamps and grease for machinery.\n\n - He controlled every step of his business—including barrel-making, pipelines, and rail tank cars—and bought out his competitors.\n\n - His company, Standard Oil, grew into a massive trust that controlled about 90\% of the nation's oil refining.\n\n - Later in life, he donated hundreds of millions of dollars to fund medical science and public health.\n\n- **Refining Oil:**\n\n - Crude oil drilled from the ground cannot be used right away.\n\n - Refining uses heat and chemicals to separate crude oil into gasoline, kerosene, diesel, and motor oil.\n\n- **Monopolies and Government Regulations:**\n\n - **Monopoly:** `(muh-nop-uh-lee)` When one company controls all or almost all of a business, leaving buyers with no other choices.\n\n - Monopolies can overcharge customers and use their money to influence politicians.\n\n - In 1904, an editorial cartoon drew Standard Oil as a giant octopus wrapping its tentacles around the government and economy.\n\n - The United States government passed antitrust laws to break up giant trusts into smaller, competing businesses.\n\n - **Philanthropy:** `(fill-an-thruh-pea)` An organization or effort that helps people through charitable donations or volunteer work.\n\n\n\n### Working Conditions and Child Labor (1865\text{--}1930\text{s})\n\n- **Child Labor in America:**\n\n - Between the Civil War and the 1930\text{s}, millions of American children worked in factories and fields instead of going to school.\n\n - By the mid-1800\text{s}50\%) of all textile workers in the Northeast were children.\n\n - Children as young as 6712\text{-hour} shifts, often late into the night.\n\n - Early labor laws were weak: one rule simply said kids under 1412\text{ hours} a day.\n\n- **Common Jobs for Children:**\n\n - **Coal Mines:** Young boys worked in dark, dusty mine shafts lit only by small gas lamps on their hats. Ten-year-old "trap boys" sat alone for 12\text{ hours}60\text{¢} a day. Small boys were hired because they could squeeze into tight crawlspaces.\n\n - **Textile Mills:** Young girls worked as "bobbin girls," moving along spinning machines to fix broken threads. Loud machines caused hearing loss, and open gears could crush or cut off fingers.\n\n - **Farms:** Children picked cotton in the South or walked barefoot in muddy cranberry bogs in the North, leading to sore backs and raw fingers.\n\n - **Food Processing:** Children used sharp knives to pry open oysters, cleaned shrimp, or packed sausage meat.\n\n - **Street Jobs:** "Newsies" sold newspapers on freezing city street corners, while other kids ran telegraph messages, shined shoes, or ran errands.\n\n - **Home Piecework:** Poor families assembled goods inside crowded apartments. Children helped parents sew buttons, add pockets, or assemble artificial flowers for hats, earning about 35\text{¢}1500 flowers completed.\n\n- **Cruel Treatment and Lewis Hine's Photos:**\n\n - Factory bosses often yelled at, kicked, or hit children who worked too slowly.\n\n - Photographer Lewis Hine traveled the country taking photos and recording stories of young workers to show the public how terrible conditions were.\n\n- **The Argument Over Child Labor:**\n\n - *Poor Parents:* Said, *"We are poor,"* arguing that families needed their children's pay to survive and that work taught them practical skills.\n\n - *Social Reformers:* Pointed out that factory work caused injuries, stopped kids from learning in school, and kept adult wages low.\n\n\n\n### The Rise of Organized Labor and Progressive Workplace Reforms\n\n- **Worker Complaints and the Rise of Unions:**\n\n - Factory workers dealt with low wages, long 12\text{-hour} shifts, and dangerous machinery with no safety guards.\n\n - Workers formed labor unions so they could join together and demand better wages and safer conditions.\n\n - The American Federation of Labor (AFL) became a large union that organized skilled workers across the country.\n\n - Garment workers held strikes and formed public picket lines to demand fair treatment.\n\n- **Strikes and Industrial Conflict:**\n\n - Tensions between company owners and workers led to big strikes, including the violent Homestead Strike at Carnegie's steel mill in Pennsylvania.\n\n- **Progressive Reforms:**\n\n - The Progressive Movement pushed lawmakers to pass rules that regulated big businesses and protected workers.\n\n - **Workplace Safety:** New state laws required safety covers on dangerous machinery, clean working areas, and emergency fire exits.\n\n - **Shorter Workdays:** Strikes and campaigns pressured businesses to adopt shorter workdays, moving toward the standard eight-hour workday.\n\n - **Child Labor Laws:** In 190430\text{ years}$$ to pass national laws banning child labor.