Chapter 24- Industry Comes of Age

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

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