Gilded Age Industrialism and Culture Unit 6 A

Gilded Age Industrialism and Culture Unit 6 A AP U. S. History

Think About It ► To what extent did industrialism and innovation maintain continuity and foster change in American society?

Captains of Industry OR Robber Barons? ► Using four business entrepreneurs as case studies for American innovation, industrial growth, and expansion of capitalism. ► Cornelius Vanderbilt ► Andrew Carnegie ► John D. Rockefeller ► J. P. Morgan

Captains of Industry OR Robber Barons: Cornelius Vanderbilt and Railroads ► Transportation ► Railroads ► Granger Movement

The Business of Railroads Rate Wars ► Pools ► § Competing lines fixed prices and divided business for max profits ► Grange Lines § Midwest farmers dependent on rail lines for shipping § High freight rates impoverished farmers

Farmers vs Railroads Granger Movement § Granger laws § Cooperatives ► Munn v. Illinois (1877) ► § ► Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Co. v. Illinois (1886) § ► States could not regulate interstate commerce Interstate Commerce Act (1886) § ► States could regulate private companies if they served the public interest, I. e. grain elevators, railroads Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) Farmers’ Alliance § Ocala Platform (1890) Free silver Low interest loan systems Decreased tariffs Government regulation of communication and transportation ► Graduated income tax ► Favored direct election of Senators ► ►

Gilded Age Press and Literature ► Newspapers and Magazines § Sensationalism and scandals § Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World § William Randolph Hearst’s The New York Journal § Editorials and investigative journalism ► Fiction and Realism § Mark Twain ► The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ► The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today § Jack London ► The Call of the Wild

Captains of Industry OR Robber Barons: Andrew Carnegie and Steel ► Vertical Integration ► Urbanization and Cities ► Gospel of Wealth ► Labor Unions and Strikes

Vertical Integration ► Carnegie acquired all aspects of steel production ► Limited competition, maximized profits, lowered prices

Bessemer Process ► Oxidation of iron ore to remove impurities § Steel is lighter, stronger, rust-resistant ► Carnegie and Steel § Adopted and adapted Bessemer Process to steel plants § Increased supply of quality steel dropped steel prices § Abundance of steel significantly impacted American industrial growth and expansion

Steel Production

Steel and Urbanization Skyscrapers ► Infrastructure ► § Grand Central Station § Brooklyn Bridge ► Urban Innovation § Mass Transit Elevated rails ► Cable cars ► Subways ► NYC 1850 NYC c. 1900 § Elevators § Central steam-heating systems

Gilded Age Architecture Carson Mansion (1886) Victorian Chicago Stock Exchange Building (1894) Louis Sullivan “form follows function” Fireproof house Frank Lloyd Wright

Gilded Age Art Cross Streets of New York (1899) Everett Shin Ashcan School Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) (1876) Winslow Homer New York (1911) George Bellows

Gilded Age Urbanization 20% of Americans lived in cities by 1860 ► 40% of Americans lived in cities by 1900 ►

Urban Problems ► Overcrowding § Tenement Living ► Pollution ► Crime ► Sanitation/Water Treatment ► Disease

Urban and Social Reform ► Social Gospel § § § ► Post-millenialism Based on Matthew 6: 10 “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” “What would Jesus do? ” (1896) Josiah Strong § Our Country: Its Possible Future and Present Crisis (1885) ► "The Anglo-Saxon is the representative of two great ideas, which are closely related. One of them is that of civil liberty. Nearly all of the civil liberty of the world is enjoyed by Anglo-Saxons: the English, the British colonists, and the people of the United States. . The other great idea of which the Anglo-Saxon is the exponent is that of a pure spiritual Christianity. ” ► New Denominations § § Christian Science Pentecostals Jehovah’s Witness Salvation Army

Urban and Social Reform ► Settlement House § Established in poor urban neighborhoods § Provided education, daycare, and health services § Middle class volunteers ► Jane Addams and Hull House § Based in Chicago

Urban and Social Reform ► Jacob Riis § ► How the Other Half Lives (1889) Henry George § § Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy (1879) "Take now. . . some hard-headed business man, who has no theories, but knows how to make money. Say to him: "Here is a little village; in ten years it will be a great cityóin ten years the railroad will have taken the place of the stage coach, the electric light of the candle; it will abound with all the machinery and improvements that so enormously multiply the effective power of labor. Will in ten years, interest be any higher? " He will tell you, "No!" "Will the wages of the common labor be any higher. . . ? " He will tell you, "No the wages of common labor will not be any higher. . . " "What, then, will be higher? " "Rent, the value of land. Go, get yourself a piece of ground, and hold possession. " And if, under such circumstances, you take his advice, you need do nothing more. You may sit down and smoke your pipe; you may lie around like the lazzaroni of Naples or the leperos of Mexico; you may go up in a balloon or down a hole in the ground; and without doing one stroke of work, without adding one iota of wealth to the community, in ten years you will be rich! In the new city you may have a luxurious mansion, but among its public buildings will be an almshouse. "

Gospel of Wealth Based on an article written by Andrew Carnegie ► Guardians of the nation’s wealth ► “All revenue generated beyond your own needs should be used for the good of the community. ” ► “In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to use the aids by which they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never to do all. Neither the individual nor the race is improved by alms-giving. ” ►

Labor Wages and Conditions ► Time and Pay § Average work week for industrial worker: 60 hours § Average hourly rate for unskilled industrial worker: $0. 10 § Iron law of wages ► Conditions § Poor ventilation and heavy equipment § In 1882, average of 675 workers killed each week ► No benefits § No vacation days, sick leave, health insurance, workers’ compensation, pensions ► Child Labor § As young as 5 years old § 12 -14 hours for $. 27 ($6. 65)

Hours and Wages of Industrial Workers (1875 -1891) Year Average Daily Hours Index of Average Daily Wages (Jan 1860 = 100) 1875 9. 9 169. 2 1876 9. 9 158. 6 1877 9. 9 146. 3 1878 9. 9 140. 7 1879 9. 9 137. 9 1880 9. 9 142. 7 1881 9. 9 160. 1 1882 9. 9 165. 1 1883 9. 9 166. 0 1884 9. 9 168. 5 1885 9. 9 169. 9 1886 9. 8 170. 3 1887 9. 7 170. 1 1888 9. 7 170. 9 1889 9. 6 170. 1 1890 9. 6 172. 7 1891 9. 4 172. 5

Unions vs. Management Industrialization, mass production, use of semiskilled workers = devalued labor ► Poor and dangerous working conditions, immigrants, and meager salaries = upset workforce ► Collective bargaining to appeal for better conditions, higher salaries, benefits ► Union Methods ► § political action and efficacy, strikes, picketing, boycotts, slowdowns Industrialization, mass production, use of semiskilled workers = increased profits ► Poor and dangerous working conditions, immigrants, and meager salaries = increasing profits and satisfied management ► Developed image of unions and organized labor as un-American, socialist, anarchist ► Management Methods ► § lockouts, scabs, blacklists, yellow-dog contracts, government/private force, court injunctions

Labor Unions Knights of Labor (1869) ► Terence V. Powderley ► Platform ► § Open to blacks, women, most immigrants, Catholics, unskilled and semi-skilled workers § Cooperatives and anti-trusts § 8 -hour workday, child labor laws ► American Federation of Labor (AFL) (1886) ► Organization of national craft unions of skilled workers ► Samuel Gompers ► “Bread and Butter” ► § Higher wages § Shorter working hours § Better working conditions Tactics § Arbitration and strikes ► Tactics § Arbitration and strikes § Political lobbying with Democratic Party

Great Railroad Strike of 1877 ► ► July 14 -September 4, 1877 Causes § Panic of 1873 § Class conflict with wage cuts and unemployment ► Events § Strikers forced rail stoppages § Federal troops engaged strikers § Riots and massacres ► Impact § Would lead to better organization of workers and labor unions § Legislation to limit unions and preparations for potential conflicts

Haymarket Riot of 1886 ► May Day (May 1 st) § Strike begins of harvesting workers ► May 3 rd § Police sent to protect strikers § Fight broke out and one person killed and several injured ► May 4 th Protest § Anarchists planned demonstration against police brutality § Police dispersed crowd of 2, 000 ► Bombing § A pipe bomb exploded and killed 7 police officers § Police fired into crowd killing 4 ► Trial § 8 innocent anarchists convicted of murder in a show trial § 4 hanged, 1 committed suicide, 3 pardoned by governor

Homestead Strike June 30 -July 6, 1892 ► Henry Frick ► § Manager of Carnegie Steel § Pursued wage cuts due to lower steel prices § Attempted to weaken steel workers union ► Events § Frick orders a lockout and hires scabs § Use of Pinkertons to disperse strikers § Pennsylvania state militia ultimately ends strike ► Impact § Weakened steel workers union § Tarnished Carnegie’s reputation

Pullman Strike (1894) ► Pullman Palace Car Company § Established “model town” for workers § In response to Panic of 1893, wages cut but not rents and town costs ► Strike § Eugene V. Debs § Workers blocked transport of Pullman cars § Pullman Co. linked them to mail cars § President Grover Cleveland deployed federal troops and court injunctions to enforce postal service ► Opinion § Most Americans opposed the strike ► ► Including AFL and Samuel Gompers In Re Debs (1895) § Supreme Court ruled federal court injunctions to enforce interstate commerce constitutional

The Organizing of Labor into Unions Is Dangerous; Labor Unions Are Essential Henry Clews – “The Folly of Organized Labor” (1886) ► Samuel Gompers – “Open Letter to Judge Peter Grosscup” (1894) The organizations have sacrificed the sympathy ► which lately was entertained for them on account of inequities existing in certain employments; they stand discredited and distrusted before the community at large as impracticable, unjust, and reckless; and, occupying this attitude before the public, their cause is hone and their organization doomed to failure. They have opened the floodgates to the immigration of foreign labor, which is already pouring in by the thousands; and they have set a premium on nonunion labor, which will be more sought for than ever, and will not be slow to secure superior earnings by making arrangements with employers upon such terms and for such hours as may best suit their interests… There have been numerous vacanies created by the strikers voluntarily resigning. There has been no difficulty in filling these vacancies by those that are equally capable, if not more so, from other countries flocking to our shores. . . Strikes may have been justifiable in other nations but they are not justifiable in our country, and there is where the mistake was in organizing such a movement. The Almighty has made this country for the oppressed of other nations, and therefore this is the land of refuge for the oppressed, and the hand of the laboring man should not be raised against it. You say that “labor cannot afford to attack capital. ” Let me remind you that labor has no quarrel with capital, as such. It is merely the possessors of capital who refuse to accord to labor the recognition, the right, the justice which is the laborers’ due with whom we contend… Are you aware that all the legislation ever secured for the ventilation or safety of mines, factory, or workshop is the result of the efforts of organized labor? Do you know that the trade unions were the shield for the seven-year-old children from being the conqueror’s trophy until they become somewhat older? And that the reformatory laws now on the statute books protecting or defending the trophies of both sexes, young and old from the fond care of the conquerors were wrested from congresses, legislatures, and parliaments despite the Pullmans, the Jeffries, the Ricks, the Tafts, the Williams, the Woods, or the Grosscups. . . Year by year man’s liberties are trampled underfoot at the bidding of corporations and trusts, rights are invaded, and law perverted. In all ages, wherever a tyrant has shown himself, he has always found some willing judge to clothe that tyranny in the robes of legality, and modern capitalism has proven no exception to the rule.

Captains of Industry OR Robber Barons: John D. Rockefeller and Oil ► Horizontal Integration ► Standard Oil § Trusts and monopolies ► Sherman Anti-trust Act (1890) ► Gilded Age Society ► Social Darwinism

Horizontal Integration

Standard Oil Trust ► Tactics § § ► Lowered prices to drive out competitors (rate wars) Threatened companies to sell to Standard Oil (buyouts) Bribed railroads to buy Standard Oil fuel (rebates, kickbacks) Bribed Congress members Trusts and Monopolies § § Controls prices Limits competition

Antitrust Movement ► Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) § Prohibits any “contract, combination, in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce” ► United States v. E. C. Knight Co. (1895) § Sugar refining monopoly tested Sherman Antitrust Act § Regulation applied to commerce and not manufacturing

Bosses of the Senate

“What a funny little government”

Scientific Management “Taylorism” ► Frederick W. Taylor ► Designed hierarchies and subdivisions of labor § Managers plan, schedule, train, and supervise § Workers perform assigned tasks best suited to skills ► Time management ► Effects § Managerial class § Efficiency § Labor resentment

Henry Ford and Model T ► Assembly Line § Mass production of products through sequential assembly ► Worker Treatment § Paid decent wages § Provided benefits ► Model T (1908) § Low-cost product for affordable price

Gilded Age Socioeconomics ► Socioeconomic gap extensively widened § Top 1% Ownership of Nation’s Wealth ► 1820: 20. 3% ► 1860: 27% ► 1900: 37. 3% § Top 20% Ownership of Nation’s Wealth ► 1820: 72% ► 1860: 88. 1% ► 1900: 97. 3% ► Statistics § § § § Total national wealth in 1860: $16 billion Total national wealth in 1900: $88 billion National wealth per capita in 1860: $500 National wealth per capita in 1900: $1100 GDP Growth Rate (1870 -1899): 4. 5% Real Wage of Unskilled Labor: 1. 43% Cost of Living: -1. 5% Expansion of middle class/white-collar workers ► 2/3 of population were wage earners ►

Gilded Age Women ► Upper-class and middle-class women § § ► College educated Increased independence Involved in social reforms Gibson Girl and New Woman 20% of American women worked as wage earners § Most single women; 5% married § Low-income families required women in workplace ► Female-based Jobs § Typical home-associated industries: ► textiles, foods, domestic servants § New types of jobs: ► secretaries, bookkeepers, typists, communication operators

Temperance and Reform ► Temperance Organizations § National Prohibition Party (1869) § Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) (1874) § Antisaloon League (1893) § Carrie Nation ► “Hatchetations” ► Reform Groups § Planned parenthood § Humane societies § Anti-prostitution

Immigration ► Massive Influx § 16. 2 million immigrants (1850 -1900) § 8. 8 million (1901 -1910) ► Old Immigrants § Northern and Western Europe ► New Immigrants § Southern and Eastern Europe; Asia § Catholics, Jews

Immigrant Issues ► Sociopolitical Enemies § § ► Nativists Josiah Strong - Our Country Legislation § Immigration Acts of 1882, 1891 ► § Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) ► ► ► Chinese immigration ban for 10 years Chinese prevented from becoming citizens Political Machines § ► Forbid convicts, lunatics, idiots, diseased, disabled Employment, housing, social services for votes Ethnic Neighborhoods § § Little Italy Chinatown

Ellis Island “…Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore…” Emma Lazarus - The New Colossus, 1883

Social Darwinism ► Herbert Spencer § “Survival of the fittest” § Wealth a result of hard work and brilliance § Poor and unfortunate were lazy ► Fueled § § § and Influenced… Laissez-faire economics Racism Nativism Imperialism Eugenics Horatio Alger Myth

Captains of Industry OR Robber Barons: J. P. Morgan and Electricity ► Banking and Financing ► Corporations ► Science and Innovation ► Consumerism

Corporations ► American Telephone and Telegraph Co. (1885) § J. P. Morgan Co. financed merger of Bell and communication companies ► General Electric (1892) § J. P. Morgan merged Edison General Electric and Thomas-Houston Electric Company ► U. S. Steel (1901) § J. P. Morgan bought Carnegie Steel and merged with other steel companies § Becomes first billion dollar company in world

Corporate Mergers - 1895 -1910

Electricity ► Thomas Edison § The Wizard of Menlo Park § Incandescent light bulb ► Safer than kerosene lamps ► New York City § Direct current (DC) ► Edison developed system of power stations ► Nicola Tesla § Alternate current (AC) ► Transfer farther of electricity faster and

Gilded Age Innovation ► ► ► Sewing Machine (1855) § Isaac Singer Transatlantic cable (1866) § Cyrus Field Dynamite (1866) § Alfred Nobel Typewriter (1867) § Christopher Scholes Air brakes (1868) § George Westinghouse Mail-order catalog (1872) § A. M. Ward Blue jeans (1873) § Levi Strauss Barbed wire (1873) § Joseph Glidden Telephone (1876) § Alexander Graham Bell* Phonograph (1877) § Thomas Edison Incandescent Light bulb (1879) § Thomas Edison* Cash register (1879) § James Ritty ► ► ► Universal stock ticker (1885) § Thomas Edison Transformer (1885) § Nikola Tesla Gasoline automobile (1885) § Karl F. Benz Skyscraper (1885) § William Le Baron Jenney Film roll and Kodak camera (1889) § George Eastman* Motion picture camera (1891) § Thomas Edison* Radio (1895) § Guglielmo Marconi Subway (U. S. ) (1895) X-ray (1895) § Wilhelm C. Rontgen Powered flight (1903) § George and Wilbur Wright Alkaline battery (1906) § Thomas Edison Model T (1908) § Henry Ford

Monumental Innovation ► Charles Alderton § Experimented with various syrups and flavorings ► Robert Lazenby § Developed Dr. Pepper by 1885 § Patented and incorporated by 1891 ► St. Louis World’s Fair and Exposition (1904) § Introduces Dr. Pepper to the world § Along with hot dogs, hamburgers, and ice cream cones

Number of Patents Issued

Gilded Age Academics ► Educational Reforms § Public Education ► Comprehensive education ► Compulsory Education ► Most states required 8 -14 year olds to attend schools ► Kindergartens ► Led to 90% literacy rate § Colleges and Universities ► Increased through federal legislation and philanthropy ► Women’s colleges and universities § By 1910 40% of college students were women ► Black colleges and universities ► Science § Charles Darwin and Evolution § Technological Innovation ► Social Sciences § Scientific method applied to behavioral sciences § Development of psychology, sociology, political science

Consumerism ► Wide variety of mass produced goods led to new marketing and sales ► Brand names and logos ► Department stores § R. H. Macy’s ► Chain stores § Woolworth’s ► Grocery stores ► Mail order catalogs § Montgomery Ward § Sears, Roebuck, Co.

Gilded Age Music ► Mainstream Music § John Philip Sousa – The March King ► ► ► The Washington Post Stars and Stripes Forever Semper Fidelis § Screamers – Circus Marches ► ► Entry of the Gladiators Popular Music § Ragtime Originated from black communities combining African syncopation and classical music ► Scott Joplin ► § The Entertainer § The Blues Originated c. 1890 from Deep South based on ballads among slaves ► Lyrics mostly soulful and melancholy ►