ush unit 1

American Industry Grows

  • Industry is growing, the industrial revolution began in Britain (via textiles) + spread to the rest of Europe and eventually America. Steam power provided a new source of energy and transportation

  • Easier mass production

  • Standard of living UP

  • Electricity was invented and utilized. The convenience and time that work can be done have increased

→ With technological innovation, countries' production of natural resources increases significantly. Economic growth up, resources down, along with dependency on said resources increasing.


Innovation Drives Economic Development

  • First enterprise system - drive for innovation

  • Patents! Inventors rushing to create to make $

  • Businesses invest in tech

→ boom, telegraph baby! Morse code created and revolutionized communication; it used electricity. Way faster than mail

→ Railroads helped goods get to their destination faster and without interruption. General benefit for everybody; desired items across the country


Industrialization + new south

  • South ius slow to recover after the Civil War

  • Remains mostly rural as a result there is a smaller middle class than in the north


Effects of Industrialization

  • Free enterprise and industrialization touch every aspect of American life

  • Affected the country's relationship w the world w its own environment

  • Sewing machine, elevator, bicycle, typewriter, light bulb, fountain pen, dishwasher, barbed wire


Corporations and New Methods of Business

  • Industrialization leads to business leaders finding new ways to grow big and fast as possible

  • Corporations replace family-owned businesses. More investors = more capital (assets and $), more growth

  • Family owned 1 owner, private.

  • corporation= multiple owners (main investors), publicly owned. 

Monopolies and trusts

  • Monopoly = exclusive and complete control of a product or service

  • Trust = an arrangement whereby a person (trustee) holds property for the owner for one or more beneficiaries. Gets around laws prohibiting monopolies 

Pros and cons of big business

PROS: 

  • Econ flourishing

  • new tech

  • more factories, more jobs

CONS

  • No regulations = low pay

  • Big businesses

  • Environmental health

The changing relationship between govt+business

  • Some1 keep big corps in check

  • Movement to stop laissez-faire,, ref do something


1.3


Hardships of Factory Work

  • Employers seek those who will work for low wages; immigrants, especially

  • Avg 12hr/day shifts

  • Sweatshops were mostly dominated by women (the garment industry)

  • Accidents were prevalent; faulty machinery + poor training

Child labor

  • End of 1800s, one in five children ages 10-16 years old worked rather than attending school

  • Social workers encouraged states to pass child labor laws

  • Another wage to help the family

Workers endure difficulty

  • Company town: housing owned by the employer and rented to the workers

  • Many workers were still in debt to the company (even post-check-cashing). This is known as wage slavery.

Fighting back

  • Striking

  • National Trade Union was founded in 1834; open to all workers in all trades

  • Collective bargaining: negotiating as a group for higher wages/better working conditions

Socialism and labor

  • Socialism: an economic and political system that favors public control of property and income

  • The communist manifesto: karl marx + frederich engels, denounced capitalism and predicted workers would overturn capitalist economies

Knights of Labor

  • Workers of all trades, both skilled and unskilled. Included women and african americans

  • Terence Powderly: leader and advocate of collective bargaining, strikes, etc

  • Disappeared in early 1890s, mostly as a result of many failed strikes

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

  • Founded by Samuel Gompers in 1866; skilled workers only

  • Focused on issues such as wages, working hours, and conditions

  • Opposed union membership for women; believed it drove wages down

The Gilded Age


  • New immigrants:

  1. Greece, Italy, Poland, Russia

  2. Culturally different than Americans

  3. Orthodox Christian, catholic, or jewish

  4. Different physical features, darker/olive-toned skin

  5. From undemocratic nations

  6. Poorer, less educated

  • Push and pull factors:

  1. New immigrants: push - poverty, pull - better wages + new jobs

  2. Chinese: push- civil unrest, pull - ca gold rush

  3. Japanese: push - high tax, pull - demand for railroad labor

  • Long journey to America

  1. Difficulties due to getting to the port of departure and $$$ for tickets

  2. Many were in steerage, the worst part of the boat

  3. Illness ran rampant

  • Ellis + Angel Islands

  1. Both were processing stations; immigration officials decided who could or could not stay in America.

  2. To enter, immigrants must demonstrate health, money, skill, or a sponsor (basically an employer)

  3. Euros went to Ellis, Asians went to Angel

  4. After 1882 (Chinese Exclusion Act), Chinese were rejected unless they were American or could prove they had relatives living in America.

  • Contributions to American Culture

  1. Andrew Carnegie - Scottish immigrant, donated to public services

  2. James Naismith - Canadian immigrant, invented basketball in the late 1800s

  3. Alexander Graham Bell - Scottish, 


Americans Migrate to Cities

  • Urban cities began to attract many people for different reasons

  1. Women found new job opportunities

  2. City workers enjoyed the attractions

  3. Immigrants joined their families and looked for jobs

  • Farmers also moved to cities when farming grew to be difficult

  • Midwestern cities grew a lot

  • As a result of this migration, we saw a rise in urban subcultures: gay bars, bohemian neighborhoods

  • Urban living created social issues

  1. Most urban workers lived in tenements, low-cost, multi-family housing

  2. overcrowding, lack of sanitation

  3. Jacob Riis- How the Other Half Lives (1890) drew attention to the plight of NYC tenement living.

  • Trash outside, horses left to rot, cholera (infected drinking water), an epidemic is coming

  • City planners began to attempt to regulate public health systems

  • Open fireplaces and gas lighting often caused fires. Chicago fire 1871. 300people killed, 100,000 left homeless.

  • Race, class, and neighborhood and thenic loyalties often led to violence in the nation's cities

  • Uniformed city police “neighborhood watch”

Technology advancements

  • Skyscrapers (10 stories or higher) had steel frames and used artistic designs to magnify their height, more businesses to be opened. Elevators and central heating as well.

  • Electricity allowed for the production of mass transit (streetcars in VA, first subway in Boston)

  • Mass transportation leads to the birth of suburbs as people can now commute into the city

  • City planners began to segregate parts of the city by zoning and designated certain areas for particular functions

Free enterprise Improves Life

  • Gilded (Age): covered in gold, yet a rotten core.

  • New ways of shopping: 

  1. john wanamaker: price tags, department stores, “money-back” guarantee, ads in newspaper

  2. shipping allowed customers around the country to buy the same products.

  3. Trends: people around the country can wear the same things, consume the same media

  • Technological innovations = new industries = higher standard of living = more jobs, wealth, and income

  • Cost of living declined - factory-made items were cheaper than handmade ones

  • Raised the life expectancy

  • Mass culture develops = transportation, communication, and advertising. 

  • Newspaper of the gilded age both reflected and helped create mass culture

  • Between 1870 and 1900 the number of papers published in the us increased from 600 to over 1600.

  • The arts reflect the times: novels that explored the realityof the times that were popular,, stephen crane, horatio alger, tin pan alley, ashcan school

  • In 1870, there were only a few hundred schools in the US, by 1910 there were 5,000+.

  • Teacher training schools also expanded