Chapter 24

Transcontinental railroad

• Promontory point UT transcontinental railroad connects there

• 1192 continuous miles of a railroad stretching from coast to coast

  • Constructed from 1863-1869

  • Built by thousands of immigrants

    • Irish

    • Chinese

      • earn less more dangerous jobs

      • expected to come here work and die

  • Initiated by Lincone with the Pacific Railway Act while still in the civil war

  • 2 companies competed to build, large payouts

  • 6 miles a day

• through the Sierra Nevada mountains

• made of granite

• nitroglycerin had to be made on the spot

• 1500 Chinese die

• 2 billion

  • companies paid in land

  • Central pacific forge east starting in Sacramento California

  • had 15 years to complete or no paycheck

• The Union Pacific Railroad law from the council of bluff Iowa to the west

• Government and the RailRoads

• Funded by government bonds

• Dhamer party was just 20 years earlier they went through it

Andrew Carnegie

• Led expansion of the steel industry

• Super rich

• Philanthropy, funded libraries, church organs,

• Carnegie steel Company

• Workers made 1.18 a day for 10-hour days

• Created vertical combination by owning rails and mines

Trusts

• Legal relationship

• Stockholders of multiple companies transfer shares to a single set of trustees in exchange for shares of consolidated earnings (creates monopolies)

• Allows assets to stay private

Sherman Antitrust Act

• 1890

• Named for senator John Sherman of OH

• Authorized the federal government to dissolve trusts

• Failed because it failed to define trust and monopoly

• Dismantled in the supreme court case United States v. E. C. Knight Company

Industrial Revolution’s Impact on the US

• Changed economic focus from agriculture to large-scale industry

• New machines and new industries

• Child labor and unions

• Increase in wealth, goods, and standards of living (took a while to reach the lower class)

• Women are paid less than men

• Women’s independence grew

American Federation of Labor

• Federation of labor unions

• Founded in Columbus in 1866

• Disappointed in knights of labor

• Alliance of craft unions

Cornelius Vanderbilt

• Made the first railway between New York and Chicago

• Monopolized the transportation business

• Accessory transit company

• Replaced iron rails with steel rails

• Made millions in the steamboat industry

• Made a land transit line across Nicargarua cause of the gold rush

• gave away 1% of the money to start Vanderbilt University

• integrity was important

• competitive

• sold all his ships to invest in railroads

JP Morgan

• Financed industrial consolidations

• Reorganized railroad companies

• Gained stock through his reorganization and became one of the most powerful businessmen in America

• active in choices businesses make even though just an investor

• helped with the panic of 1907 by donating 25mil

• bought carnage’s steel company which is now protect(among others)

Jonh D Rockefeller

• Owned ¾ of the American oil industry

• Standard oil company

• Widely considered the richest man in modern history

• World first billionaire

• goal in life make 100,000 and live to 100 (died at 98)

• forced to disband because of monopoly but still around as Exxon Mobile, BP,

• researched and figured out refining oil instead of mining

• got rid of the middleman

Gospel of Wealth

• Book by Andrew Carnegie

• Also known as just wealth

• Discarded the upper classes responsibility of philanthropy

• give to society not family

Interstate Commerce Act

• Designed to regulate the monopolistic railroad industry

• The act required railroads to have fair and just rates but did not specify any power to fix rates

• Helped farmers who were using railroads to transport goods

Knights of Labor

• In US, Canada, Britain, and Australia

• Led by Terrance v powderly

• Supported the Chinese Exclusion Act

• Saw Asian immigrants as competition

• Aspired for a society in which laborers owned the industries in which they worked

• Campaigned for 8h work day

• Made up of skilled and unskilled workers

• women and African Americans were allowed to join

• organized strikes that were really effective

• participated in the Haymarket square riot which dramatically decreased popularity

Haymarket Square

• A bomb was thrown  at policemen

• Police were trying to break up a peaceful labor union rally

• Police responded with gunfire killing multiple people

• Counterproductive for labor unions