An Economy Transformed:

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CHAPTER 17

• An Economy Transformed
• The Rise of Big Business,
• 1877 - 1887

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Railroads and a Locomotive People

• Federal and state aid and a standard gauge
  contribute to national rail network
• Railroads become first big business and stimulate
  economy
• Trunk and feeder lines
• Rail tycoons and politics mix
• Cornelius Vanderbilt, Collis Huntington and Jay
  Gould
• Regulation is debated
• Munn v. Illinois
• Interstate Commerce Act establishes first
  national commission

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The Railroad Network
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Railroad Expansion, 1870-1890
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Time Zones Established by the Railroads, 1883
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Big Business Arrives

• John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil
• By the 1870s, controlled 90 of U.S. oil refining
  
• Horizontal integration
• Holding company
• Andrew Carnegie and Carnegie Steel
• Bessemer process
• Vertical integration
• Pace of inventions quickens
• Alexander Graham Bell
• Thomas Alva Edison
• Mechanized labor becomes more tedious

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Andrew Carnegie
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Edison Listening to Stenograph
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Big Business Arrives (cont.d)

• Unionization is attempted
• Knights of Labor opens doors to more workers
• Haymarket Affair
• American Federation of Labor lasts longer
• Samuel Gompers
• Social Darwinism, or survival of the fittest,
  enjoys brief heyday in business
• Herbert Spencer
• Horatio Alger
• Henry George
• Lester Frank Ward

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The Changing West

• Indian Resistance sporadic by end of 1800s
• Battle of Little Big Horn
• Chief Joseph
• Geronimo
• Dawes Severalty Act of 1887
• Mining draws many to West
• Cattle ranching transforms Great Plains
• Homestead Act of 1862
• Desert Lands Act (1877)
• Timber and Stone Act (1878)
• Western territories become states

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Mining and Cattle Frontiers, 1870s
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Railroad Land Grants
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The New South?

• Redeemers in South celebrate end of
  Reconstruction and attempt to rebuild region
• Sharecropping allows agriculture to continue in
  South but benefits few
• Southerners feel as if treated like colonies of
  North
• Quasi-slavery keeps blacks in place with
  restrictive laws
• Civil Rights Act of 1875
• Booker T. Washington
• Tuskegee Institute of Alabama

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Life and Culture During the 1880s

• Americans work hard and eat well when possible
• John Pemberton
• Electricity changes American lifestyle
• Leisure time increases and becomes varied
• P.T. Barnum and Buffalo Bill
• National League founded 1876

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Political America, 1877-1887

• Politics becomes form of entertainment
• Rutherford B. Hayes
• James Garfield
• Chester A Arthur
• Pendleton Act brings civil service reform
• Grover Cleveland

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Election of 1884
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Discussion Questions

• What was the Interstate Commerce Act? What
  aspects of American society had changed to make
  such legislation necessary?
• What role did business tycoons like Rockefeller
  and Carnegie play in the industrialization of
  America?
• What benefits did industrial growth bring to the
  United States? Did these benefits apply to the
  entire nation?
• Compare the administrations of Chester Arthur to
  Grover Cleveland. What were their successes and
  failures?