The Emergence of Modern America

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The Emergence of Modern America

• Agricultural America gave way to Industrial
  America in the years following the Civil
  Warshaping this nation in fundamental ways.

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I. Reasons for the Tremendous Post-War
Industrial Growth

• Willingness to exploit rich natural resources
• Terrific Infra-structure
• Adequate Labor Supply
• Adequate amounts of risk capital
• Captains of Industry
• Innovative ideas and inventions
• Sympathetic state and national governments

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II. The Role of the Railroad in Industrial Growth

• Foundation of the American Industrial Revolution
• Explosion in track mileage
• First transcontinental railway
• Central Pacific and Union Pacific

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III. The Role of Inventions in Manufacturing

• Invention was the mother of new industry and new
  departures in old ones
• Thomas Edison and his invention business
• Other new inventions
• --George Eastmans Kodak (1888)
• Chicagos World Fair (1893)

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IV. Leading Entrepreneurs of the Age

• Railroad Barons
• John D. Rockefeller
• --vertical and horizontal integration
• --Trusts
• Andrew Carnegie
• --complex cost-analysis
• J.P. Morgan
• --United States Steel Corporation (1901)

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V. The Shape of Industrial Growth

• BIG!
• The Golden Age of Consolidation
• Benefits or positive aspects of consolidated
  industry
• Disadvantages or Concerns
• --traditional fear of monopoly
• --fear of economic and political corruption
• --fear of natural resource exploitation
• --fear of growing gap between the rich and poor

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VI. Alternative Responses to Industrial Growth

• Everythings Fine
• Regulate Industry
• --Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
• Break up Trusts
• --Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)
• Government ownership of Industry

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VII. Defending Industrial Growth

• Classical Liberal Economic Theory
• Social Darwinism
• Contempt for government intervention
• William Graham Sumners What the Social Classes
  Owe to Each Other (1883)
• Reform Darwinism
• --Lester Frank Ward

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VIII. The Evolution of Urban America

• Urbanization key social development of late
  19th century America
• Industry now drove city growth, not trade
• Great boom in size of American cities
• 1890s Chicago splendid chaos

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IX. Urban Problems Without Solutions

• Police Corruption
• Slum Housing
• -- Dumbbell tenements
• --First Electric elevator (1889)
• Work Conditions
• Problems with Disease

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IX. Urban Problems (cont.)

• Public Transportation problems
• Lack of Green Space
• -- City Beautiful movement
• Political Corruption
• --Big City Political machines
• -- Good Government Reformers
• Lure of City Life

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X. An American Tradition The Melting Pot

• Reformers view immigrants with mixed feelings
• Immigration noble theme in American history
• Sources of immigration changing
• Volume of immigrants increasing
• --1900-1914 1 million/yr.

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XI. New Sources of Immigration

• Old Immigrants
• New Immigrants
• Ellis Island (1890)
• Welcomed 12 million people before it closed in
  1954
• 40 of all Americans have ancestors that passed
  through Ellis

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XII. Response to the New Immigrants

• New immigrants clumped in large cities
• Fear due to clannishness and fertility
• Nativism
• Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled
  masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched
  refuse of your teeming shore.

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XIII. Ineffective Unionization During the Late
19th Century

• Traditional attitude of the American worker
• Blacklisting
• Balanced Nationalism
• Government clearly favored big business in a
  conflict with labor
• Many scabs available
• General American attitude toward unions

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XIV. Major Organizational Attempts During the
19th Century

• Knights of Labor (1869)
• --Terence Powderly
• --Haymarket Riot (1886)
• American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.--1886)
• --Samuel Gompers
• Mineworker Unions
• --Industrial Workers of the World
  (Wobblies--1905)
• -- Big Bill Haywood

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XV. 19th Century Labor Strikes

• National Railroad Strike (1877)
• Homestead Steel Plant Strike (1892)
• --Henry Clay Frick
• Pullman Railroad Car Works Strike (1894)
• --American Railway Workers Union (ARWU)
• --Eugene V. Debs

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XVI. Trends in Literature A Lens to the Era

• Study of history and economics flourished
• Pragmatism became the leading philosophy of the
  era
• --William James and John Dewey
• School of Local Color
• Literary Realism and Naturalism
• --Maggie Girl of the Streets (1893)